For 30 years I drove over-the-road for a living. Long hauls across the country, watching light change over landscapes most people never see, reading people at truck stops and fuel stops and weigh stations. You learn to observe when you have nothing else to do but drive and think.
That observation — knowing when someone is genuinely relaxed versus just performing relaxed, reading the way light falls on a face versus a building versus an open field — that's not something you learn in a photography class. I brought it with me when I picked up a camera seriously.
I started in wedding photography, which teaches you to work fast, stay invisible, and capture moments you cannot ask to be repeated. High stakes, unpredictable light, people at their most emotional. It's an incredible training ground.
Then I became a grandfather. Four grandchildren in quick succession, and suddenly I was the person behind the camera at every family gathering, watching toddlers interact with the world in ways that go by in seconds and never come back exactly the same way. That shifted something.
I transitioned to family lifestyle photography and built jeffjansen.net around the same "connection over perfection" philosophy I'd carried through years of wedding work. And when those grandchildren started getting older and I started seeing seniors in my family photography sessions, I realized I had something specific to offer that niche too.
Senior portraits should feel like the senior. Not like a set. Not like a formula someone found on Pinterest. The best senior portrait work I've seen looks exactly like the person in it — their energy, their humor, their actual face when they're not trying. That's what I'm chasing on every session.