Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photography. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

I Took 1,719 Graduation Photos, Mostly of the Dog

Because how could I not, when she is genuinely THAT CUTE!

Also that miserable having to wear a preschool graduation cap and gown that we bought her off of Facebook Marketplace.

I think it's this one, so at $8 we probably didn't really get a great deal on it, but 1) this was my very first Facebook Marketplace purchase, and 2) I'm uncomfortable with haggling, so anything below list price feels like a good get. 

Fortunately(?), the kid's cap and gown come free with her tuition!

I did end up ironing that gown in my hotel room while watching the PWHL, after sending the husband and kid off to buy candy to sneak into the movie theater later that night. Project Hail Mary was even better on IMAX than it was on the regular screen!

I didn't get every photo on my shot list, but honestly, I got a LOT more than I thought I would! I got a lot of great photos showing off the cap and gown from behind--



--and some really good detail photos of her cap with its "2026" charm:




I couldn't quite figure out how to make her favorite picture book or stuffed animal work in photos, but I got some shots in anyway:


But all the photos of her and her best friend in their matching caps and gowns are priceless!



If you zoom in on Luna in any photo, though, you can see that she is absolutely OVER our nonsense, lol. She would never actively protest, but I'm cracking up at this close-up of her just staring resentfully into the middle distance:


Also, her jowls tucked behind the elastic band that I stitched onto that baby graduation cap!

I tried to take most of my photos in campus spots that were meaningful to the kid, but sometimes I veered off-road a bit. I'm pretty sure the only time the kid has so much as stepped into the campus chapel was during Admitted Student Day, when the campus female a cappella group serenaded us with Billie Eilish, but still. It's a lovely spot for some photos!


My favorite photo spot was the kid's favorite classroom on campus, although the photos that I took there aren't super sharp--why do classrooms seem to always have such bad lighting?!? But the science building on this campus, and the classrooms inside it, are on the old-school side in just the right way, with scientific charts on bulletin boards (my favorite is this one) and cases full of fossils and cabinets full of rocks and shelves full of the textbooks of generations past:


I forgot to even put a graduation prop in this photo--there were a thousand boxes of rocks, each one hand-labeled, and just between us I lost my head a little. If you ever want to look at my one thousand photos of hand-labeled rocks, let me know!

It would be so bad to steal from a school, but if that fish fossil ever turns up missing, they should probably send a SWAT team to my house...

And just like that, we're already doing things for the last time. Last time reading the posters of bad science jokes on the walls in the physics department:


Last time paying waaaay too much for admittedly delicious local hard cider:


I'm genuinely embarrassed to tell you this, but this bottle was over $30!

Last time bumming off the kid's meal plan points for chicken and fries:

All this, and she still always has so many meal plan points leftover on the last day of school that she buys out the undergrad grocery every year. We're always stocked with snacks every summer!

I'm really looking forward to all the family events and other graduation festivities that her school hosts, since this will be our first proper graduation from a genuine institution, and even more so now that I know I can relax and not worry about getting the perfect photo of the kid in her cap and gown.

Ooh, there's a family party the night before her graduation ceremony. DO YOU THINK THEY'LL HAVE KARAOKE?!?!?!?

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!
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Wednesday, April 15, 2026

I Finally Get To Take Graduation Photos Of My Kid, And I Have So Many Ideas!

This tiny little environmental scientist is about to graduate college!

Neither of my homeschooled high schoolers wanted any part of the cap and gown, pomp and circumstance aspects of high school graduation. They each just kind of... got to a natural end point in every subject they were studying, decided they were done, and went on with other business while I trailed after, saying things like, "Should we do a proper graduation ceremony? No? Maybe just some photos? No? Okay, how about just a pretty diploma? An announcement, at least? No? Nothing? Not a single thing? UGH!"

So my older kid's upcoming college graduation, AND the fact that she has agreed to let me walk around campus with her and take some proper cap and gown photos, is sending me, Artemis-like, over the Moon with excitement...

...which I will, of course, do my best to tamp down to something that appears more like vague interest, lest the kid decide that graduation photos are actually cringe.

She might anyway--that's always the risk with these kids!--but I've upped my odds by purchasing a preschool-sized graduation cap and gown from Facebook Marketplace for eight dollars (my first Facebook Marketplace purchase! I'm what's known as a late adopter), putting it on the dog, taking a photo, sending her the photo, and telling her that on this upcoming visit I am bringing the dog, AND the dog's very own graduation cap and gown, so that they can take graduation photos together.

Dog tax attached, but be warned that it's not a good photo, but more of a proof of concept:


I need to add some black elastic to that cap so it stays on her head, but otherwise, it's totally gonna work, right? Mental note to pack alllllllll the dog treats...

This pic should be super easy to pose, and it would work in a variety of locations. There are tons of steps on the kid's campus, so I could see it happening on any of the endless flights of stairs, or going through some of the decorative gates at the edge of campus, which, my local university has so many of those, too. What is up with colleges and their universal obsession with decorative gates?


Walking away is the best, because you don't have to smile on command!


Just the cap with street clothes is VERY cute. It would also work with her equestrian team gear:


How cute would this be with some of the kid's collection of 5,000 well-loved stuffies?

OR, how about she's walking away wearing the cap and gown, but she's also carrying the most-well loved of the bunch, Diplodocus?

And now I'm off on a tangent imagining a studio photo shoot just for Diplodocus...


I like this idea for a close-up:


This next one is a nice way to show off an iconic campus building, but it does require a lot of room, since the subjects, themselves, are in the middle distance. The kid's campus does have some iconic buildings, but the college is mostly on top of a hill so I'm not sure how much distance you can really get in a photo:


School name visible in the background is iconic!


I don't know how I'll actually take this photo, since I wasn't anticipating putting a tripod and a remote shutter on my packing list... but maybe!


This would be another good photo for a vista!


In this next one, I really like the flowing, open gown, and how it would also show off the steps of the campus library, one of the kid's favorite places and where she's spent a ton of time. I think the cap would work being held either on her head, as in the photo, or down by her side. Not having to look at the camera and smile on demand is a plus:


I bet she's got a favorite bench somewhere on campus, or even just a picturesque flight of steps to sit on. Did I mention that her school has a LOT of steps?


This is the kind of dog content I'm imagining. Basically, take every one of the photo ideas I've already shown you, and then simply add a dog in matching graduation gear!


I thought these three and a half years would feel so long, but now that I'm almost on the other side of them, they were actually so short. It's weird how life keeps doing that, passing by without you noticing. But pretty soon I'm going to pack the car and the dog and drive over to Ohio. I'm going to convince the kid to put on her cap and gown, and then probably convince her to take it off again so I can iron it really quickly (only iron your graduation gowns on warm, because they're polyester!). We're going to walk around her campus, I'm going to take a million photos and ask a million questions, squeeze a million stories out of her about this short, precious time, and I am going to notice EVERYTHING.

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page! 

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