By Tiffani Lear, Reno Senior Portrait Photographer

I grew up in South Lake Tahoe.

Not the glamorous part people post on Instagram. The real part. The part where my family loved me deeply but couldn’t quite stretch to season passes or used cars.

If I wanted something, I worked for it.

At 15, minimum wage was $4.15 an hour. I worked an entire summer for a pair of rollerblades. Not because I was obsessed with skating—because they’d get me to work faster. And yeah, they were fun. For the three months it wasn’t winter.

But there’s one thing my mom made sure I had, even when money was tight:

My senior portraits.

1990s Glamour Shots: The Vibe

If you were a teenager in the 90s, you remember.

The soft filter. The big hair. The dramatic makeup. The leather jacket on a Harley you’d never ridden.

It was ridiculous. It was glorious. It was us.

I changed outfits. I posed. I felt, for one afternoon, like someone worth photographing.

My mom paid for those portraits. And I know what that cost her. Not just money—though that was real. But the belief that I mattered enough to document. That I was worth stopping time for.

I didn’t understand that part yet. I was 17.

The Yearbook Disaster

Here’s what happened next.

Over the summer, there was an appointment to get your official yearbook photo taken by some company. I missed it. No big deal, I thought I already had real portraits from a real photographer.

But the school saw it differently.

When I tried to make it right, they offered me this: show up one random morning, no warning, and they’d snap a photo in front of the mobile trailers behind the school. Some kid from yearbook would take it. That would be my senior portrait.

I said no.

My mom paid for beautiful portraits. Real ones. I wasn’t going to let a trailer and a rushed snapshot represent my entire high school existence.

So the yearbook came out. And I wasn’t in it.

The Studio Did Something Kind

When I told the photography studio what happened—the one where my mom had spent money we didn’t really have—they did something I’ve never forgotten.

They put me in their ad in the back of the yearbook.

It wasn’t the same as being on the page with my classmates. But it was someone saying: I see you. You matter. We’ll make sure you’re here.

I wonder if that moment planted something in me. Some belief that photographs aren’t just pictures. They’re proof that we existed.

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What I Didn’t Know at 17

I didn’t know my mom would die when I was 25.

I didn’t know I’d become a mother myself one day and ache to show my child who I was before they existed.

I didn’t know I’d toss those yearbooks eventually, the ones I wasn’t in anyway and lose the few pieces of evidence that I’d been young.

I still have one or two of those glamour shots. The big hair. The soft filter. The leather jacket. My mom’s money, transformed into something I’d clutch forever.

That’s it. That’s all that’s left of me at 17.

30 Years Later, Someone Had to Look for Me

Fast forward to my 30-year high school reunion.

We met at an outdoor brewery in South Lake Tahoe, one of those motel-adjacent spots that felt perfectly on-brand for where I grew up. I brought my son because I thought it would be fun for him to see where I came from. To put faces to stories. To prove I’d been young once.

He was nine. Curious. Observant in that way kids are before the world teaches them not to notice everything.

I saw the name tags laid out on a table. Alphabetical. Row after row of faces I hadn’t seen in decades.

My son wandered over. Then he called out: “Mom, where’s yours?”

I walked over. Scanned the table. I knew I wasn’t there but I looked anyways. Nothing.

A kind classmate overheard and started looking too. Flipping through stacks. Checking under other names. Offering to ask the organizers if maybe mine got misplaced.

And I had to say it out loud:

“I’m not on there. I wasn’t in the yearbook.”

I explained it quickly. The missed appointment. The mobile trailers. The no. The yearbook with three hundred faces and not one of them mine.

My son was quiet for a moment. Then he said: “That’s sad, Mom.”

He understood. He’s nine, but he understood.

Someone had to look for my face at my own reunion. And there was nothing to find.

Why I Became a Reno Senior Photographer

Now I’m a Reno senior photographer.

I spend my days chasing seniors around downtown murals, desert landscapes, and snow day hills. I fight to make my name known online so clients can find me. I document other people’s children in the golden light of Pyramid Lake and the neon glow of Midtown.

And every single time, I’m photographing them for their future selves.

For the mom they’ll become.
For the 45-year-old at a reunion.
For the day they need proof that they were here, they were young, they mattered.
For the nine-year-old son who might one day ask where their face is.

Because I know what it’s like to almost not have that proof.

I know what it’s like to have someone look for you and come up empty.

I know what it’s like to hold one or two photos and wish you had more.

To the Seniors Reading This

You might not care about senior portraits right now. I get it. You’re busy. You’re broke. You’re over it.

But here’s what I know that you don’t:

Someday, you’ll want to remember.

Not the stress. Not the drama. Not the assignments you stayed up too late finishing.

You. At this exact moment. Before everything changes.

Your mom might not say it out loud, but she wants this for you. Maybe she’s stretching a budget to make it happen, just like mine did. Maybe she’s working overtime. Maybe she’s quietly dreaming of the day you’ll look back at these photos and smile.

Let her have that. Let yourself have that.

To the Parents Reading This

I know you’re the one making this happen. I know you’re coordinating, paying, stressing, hoping.

I see you.

And I want you to know: This matters.

Not because of the yearbook. Not because of the Instagram likes. Because twenty years from now, your kid will hold that photo and remember who they were. And they’ll remember that you believed they were worth documenting. This is coming from experience as a Reno senior photographer.

That’s not nothing. That’s everything.

Let’s Make Sure You’re In the Frame

If you’re a Reno senior or the parent of one I’d love to photograph you.

Not in front of mobile trailers.
Not rushed.
Not forgettable.

At the locations you love. In the clothes that feel like you. With the people who make you laugh.

Let’s make sure that when you’re 45, at your reunion, standing at the name tag table with your own child…

No one has to look for you.

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Tiffani Lear is a Reno senior photographer who believes every teenager deserves to be seen. She specializes in authentic, unscripted portraits at the locations you actually love—because someday, you’ll want to remember.