Our session senior session with Addy was a blast! Addy is a senior at Ritenour High School (my high school rivals!) and is such a bright and kind person. We had a blast getting to know her and loved meeting her mom and BFF who came to support her during her session.
The first thing that her mom indicated that Addy wanted was to do pictures at a graffiti wall. St. Louis has one of the best graffiti walls in the country, so we decided to meet downtown and start our session there. As I was researching the graffiti wall, I learned that the weekend we would be there was Paint Louis, an annual event where people re-paint. I was worried the walls would be blank and a work-in-progress and there wouldn't be a lot of fun designs and colors, but when we got there, the place was crowded with people and artists creating art all along the wall. I was especially excited when we saw a fun wall with a bunch of color, and it was in the shade! Because the wall faces west, I was worried the sun would blind Addy, but this wall was the perfect spot! We started off there and Addy really loved the spot and all of the bright graffiti. We got a lot of fun variety there, and then moved on to a few other areas of the wall, including a spot with these awesome TV paintings. It was really fun photographing Addy with all of the artwork and seeing the artists and people downtown.
Addy's next request was that she wanted to incorporate her skill of swimming, which she's been doing it since elementary school. Her specialty races are the backstroke and the 500 freestyle, which is 20 laps! When she told me that, my jaw dropped. That's a lot of laps, and she can do it so fast! To commemorate her swimming skills, she changed into her token swimming shirt and we walked out to the parking lot by the Mississippi River so we could get the water in the background.
After that, we headed up to the Arch ground to get some of the "traditional" park pictures. Addy had two different dresses and looked beautiful in them! We took some stunning pictures of her with the Arch in the background — the true St. Louis landmark — and the grounds nearby. She was stunning! It was such a pleasure spending the afternoon was the amazing Addy and can't wait to see more amazing things from her in the future!