Columbia High School Senior Portraits

North Florida

Morghan Warner

Morghan and I spent most of our afternoon together hiding from lightning… I’m actually not joking. The morning of her senior portrait session the forecast called for 10% chance of rain. No big deal, it’s Florida, we expected a summer shower. We get to hair and makeup, everything is still fine and beautiful, then we start traveling to her first location. The springs, like most summer days, were crowded with people swimming, no big deal. We got down to my suggested spot… that’s when the first crack of lightning hit. The springs quickly cleared out and we were one of the last people remaining. That’s when Morghan informed me that she is terrified of storms. After seeing a little fear in her eyes (and my own, not going to lie!), we decided to try and wait out the storm at her family’s farm house.

As soon as we got into our vehicles the bottom fell out of the sky. If you’ve ever been to the springs, you know they’re on a ton of dirt roads. Well, I drive a car that’s very low to the ground. The roads started to flood and I was sure I would get stuck in the middle of this storm. Luckily, I didn’t and we made it to the farm house in one piece. That’s when things started to get really bad. We watched lightning pop off in every direction and rain come down way harder than 10% chance of rain should. We waited about 30 minutes and still nothing had let up. We refused to drive anywhere due to weather, so decided to wait it out a little longer. 45 minutes rolled around and we thought “Okay, let’s see if we can come up with a date to reschedule.” We tried several dates and two separate hair and makeup artists and couldn’t find a date that would work with everyone, so we waited longer. Maybe an hour or so in to our wait, the weather started clearing up.

We attempted to drive back to the springs to just see if we could get any photos that day since we spent so long waiting on the rain. After a few three (or 30) point turns on the dirt roads to avoid major puddles, we arrived back at the springs which were now completely void of people. Though we had a few drips of water from the trees, we were able to complete Morghan’s portraits at the springs (which were super blue after the hard rain).

We chanced it and decided to finish her session as planned, and I’m glad we did! Morghan’s portraits turned out great despite the weather conditions that we were given. Morghan had such a hopeful and positive attitude about the entire situation, she’s truly a joy to be around. Morghan, I’m glad that you love your senior portraits, but I’m even more glad that we didn’t get struck by lightning (because it was a big posibility!).

Another day of rain, another 2019 senior portrait session completed.

-Shelly

Location: North Florida