What is a Senior Portrait? Tips to Hiring a Senior Portrait Photographer

This isn't as simple as it may sound. There are two different clients when you have a senior portrait. The parents and the student (the senior). Generally when you hear a parent ask a photographer for professional senior portrait it is considered a traditional senior portrait such as the following...

This is a Traditional Senior Portrait

Generally a traditional senior portrait session can be shot and done within 30 minutes if prepped beforehand in a studio and with no special requests. These are very straight forward and simple to setup.

A modernized senior portrait is as follows...

These are Modern Senior Portraits

Generally what includes into modern senior portraits are photos with a fashion flare and style. A lot of these are generally done outdoors as you can see above. Also these shoots are generally more costly to the client (parents generally) as these shoots do take up more time and prep and possibly even travel to locations.

And here its side-by-side

  

                                 Modern                                                              Traditional

In Conclusion...

The school's standards are generally the traditional. If you're submitting these for yearbook you need the traditional, you generally would never submit the modern senior portraits for most schools. The modern senior portraits are generally for sharing online via email or social media with friends and family or prints which could be given to friends and family as well. 

Tip when hiring a senior photographer, look for packages that include a simple traditional senior portrait session and a modern. Generally these will cost more, but I highly recommend getting a mix of both and generally the traditional portraits are better mixed into the modern senior portraits just because the traditional ones are simple to setup and shoot generally. I would go with a modern package only if you've already had the school's photographer photograph you/your children. 

Here's some more images of modern senior portraits!