It has been over a year since we did our destination shoot in Las Vegas and I realized I never did do a blog post about the trip and since I’m announcing tomorrow who gets to go on our 2021 destination trip, I figured I’d better share more from our past 2 destination trips, starting with Vegas!
For those who don’t know, I started doing these trips a couple years ago and they are always so much fun. My seniors have a chance of winning a spot on the trip by either getting referrals or booking my top session fee. We did Vegas in 2019 and Laguna Beach in February of 2020 (right before the whole world seemed to shut down). My two best friends, Leah from Wild Plum Photography and Kelley from Kelley Howe Photography, are also senior photographers so back in 2017 we started tossing around the idea of doing destination shoots together and that dream became a reality and now we’re planning our 3rd one! Vegas was our first destination trip that we all did together and we each brought a few of our seniors and their moms and stayed in a big VRBO mansion together and planned some pretty stellar shoots. Since that was our first year, we kind of went overboard with the shoots (we did 4 shoots in 2 days!) and realized that for the next year, we were only going to do two shoots and budget in an extra day as well. So even though this first experience was a little hectic and we didn’t get much sleep, we had so much fun and I love the images we captured.
For all of these shoots, Leah, Kelley and I decided on a theme and purchased the wardrobe for the shoots. That process is always a little overwhelming and it’s sometimes hard to find exactly what we are envisioning but we were so happy with how everything turned out.
Red Rock Canyon Shoot
The first shoot was a sunrise shoot in Red Rock Canyon. We went with a boho look for this one with lots of jewelry, head wraps, braids and feathers. This was the only shoot we didn’t do professional makeup for because we had to wake up so early to get ready to catch the sunrise. Totally worth it though!
We also squeezed in a mini shoot on the road after…so I guess you could technically say we did 5 shoots in two days. 🙂
Two of my girls who came on the trip happened to be best friends so I made sure to get some cute images of them together!
Fremont Street Shoot
The next shoot we did that evening was on Fremont Street in old Vegas. Let me tell you….that was quite the experience. You could stand there and people watch all day! We had Amanda from Amanda Lee Artistry in Omaha come along and she did makeup for this shoot.
Nelson’s Ghost Town Shoot
The next day we had planned a shoot at Nelson’s Ghost Town. It is the coolest spot with so many old buildings and cars…. so pretty much a photographer’s paradise! We decided to do a modern western theme for this shoot and I love how they all turned out!
Dry Lake Bed Shoot
This last shoot was probably the one I was most excited for. I had purchased these big dresses from a shop in China and they had arrived literally days before we left. They were so huge that we had to put them in those vacuum-sealed bags so we could fit them in our suitcases. Loved the juxtaposition of the huge dresses with the mountain backdrop. It was just what we had envisioned. This shoot was kind of tricky because we only had a certain amount of time before the sun went down to get what we needed and it was pretty chilly but again….so worth it!
I don’t think people fully realize how much planning and preparation goes into these destination shoots. We literally had thousands of text messages back and forth for months leading up to this trip trying to plan it all and make it perfect. And not to mention, many hours by ourselves each researching and planning… between figuring out wardrobe, researching houses, locations, looking up permits to shoot at certain locations, trying to figure out makeup and shoot schedules…the list goes on. So worth it though and I hope these girls remember this experience from their senior year for the rest of their lives.
Here are some candid pictures from the trip:
Thanks so much to Amanda with Amanda Lee Artistry for coming along and doing professional makeup for these shoots. Check her out at:Â http://www.amandaleeartistry.com/
Stay tuned to for a blog post about our Laguna Beach destination shoot!
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