My Baby Sister's Senior Pictures

I'll go ahead and begin by apologizing to Meg for this post, because I'm sure it is going to embarrass her a lot, but I wouldn't do it if I knew she couldn't take it :)  And p.s. this is just as embarrassing for me!

My little sister, Meg, is the youngest of 4.  Meg has always been the most easy going of the 4 of us, and it's probably because we dropped her so many times as a child (seriously...we have it on film multiple times).  If I ever needed anything, I just had to say: "Meg, I'll time you if you go get me such and such."  And she would do it...actually, she sometimes will still do something if I tell her I will time her.

I think we had her saying "You go girl" "whatever" and "girl power" consistently for about a year when she was around 2 or 3...mostly for our personal enjoyment.  (Yes, this was during the late 90s when the Spice Girls were big.)  So, whenever I needed a model to photograph, Austin and Elizabeth (my brother and sister) would always refuse.  Even when I would try and bribe them with used toys they would still refuse.  So, my last resort was always Meg.  I never had a problem getting Meg to pose for me and let me try out new things...even when that included me putting her in OUTRAGEOUS (seriously) outfits and some very questionable styling on my part.

Thanks to some detective work on the part of my mother and father, they were able to find some of those wonderful pictures that helped me get my start in photography.  Meg, thanks for putting up with my incredibly wild ideas and very poor skills, without you I would have been photographing stuffed animals more than humans and possibly still dressing my clients in outfits like a pant leg fashioned into a dress.  I wish I had access to all of the images I took of her before digital, but they are somewhere deep in a box and I won't make my mom and dad search through everything.

Let's all keep in mind that not only was technology inferior when these were taken (on a camera that was 1 megapixel...just 1) but so was style...this is from a time when Jnco jeans and FUBU were cool (okay, maybe that was just in Topeka).  My fashion sense was clearly damaged from this, and therefore I cannot be judged for the fashion decisions made in these photos. With that said, here it goes...

1998: Meg was 3 and I was 10.  During the summer I decided to try and make a little money off of my parents, so I put on a dance camp in our basement.  I made itineraries, choreographed dances, filmed the final show and even photographed each attendee (my 3 siblings) in their dance outfits.  I had the film developed and gave each "client" their pictures after the camp.  In case you were wondering, the final dance was to Celine Dion's "Make You Happy," and yes I could probably still perform some of the dance.

These are all from 2002 when I was 14 and Meg was 7.

This series is circa 2003.  I was 15 and Meg was 8.  Tragic.

A little later into 2003...

Putting dark makeup on an 8 year old...probably never a good idea.   Bucket of old dance costumes also provided unlimited outfit opportunities...unfortunately for her.

This unfortunate series of photos have to be the worst.  My mom helps with the competition costumes at the dance studio we all attended, and for one particular dance, they took white pleather pants and turned them into hot shorts.  This meant lots of extra white pleather pant legs.  So, I had the brilliant idea of turning a pant leg into a dress for Meg.  I am not sure what my thinking was with this, but again I blame the fashion of the time. :)

Now we venture into 2004...a little better camera...a little older Meg (still lots of freckles)...

And a little experiment into what Meg would look like without freckles

And we move onto 2005...

And into 2006...

And 2007...

and so forth...

Thanks for being a great guinea pig and always letting me use you as a model and do stupid things like make music videos over winter break like so:



Meg came up to Kansas City and spent the afternoon with me and we took her senior pictures...she even let me do her hair and pick out her outfits and jewelry despite my prior track record.  Enjoy!

A little break to change up the hair and she requests I snap this while it sets.  Eerily, it looks a lot like me.

Sorry, Meg :)

Waiting for me to pick another spot...I turn around to this.