Flashing a shaka, or “hang loose,” sign is perhaps the most apropos gesture Naperville’s Max Newman could do while posing for his senior pictures earlier this month.
The 17-year-old made quite the splash with his high school graduation photos, wearing a cap and gown while wake surfing behind the family boat on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin.
More Top Picks Best Flexible Seating For Classrooms
Max, a Plainfield North High School senior who works at Gordy’s Marine in Fontana on Lake Geneva during the summer, said he remembered his co-workers sharing ideas for their senior photos a couple of years back and someone suggested how cool it would be to surf in a cap and gown.
“They never really went through with it so I just kept it in the back of my head,” Max said. “When I turned a senior two years later, I just wanted to go for it.”
His mother, Lisa Newman, made a few calls to photographers in Lake Geneva, and Sarah Case jumped at the chance.
“I instantly was excited,” Case said.
She’s never had a photo shoot that had so many challenging factors, she said.
“The boat is moving. Max is moving. Trying to get him in focus … keeping the gown dry,” she said.
There were concerns the life jacket under the gown would make Max look too bulky, and the photographer had to contend with drizzly weather and the inevitable spray from the lake that would splash on the camera lens.
The weather on Aug. 13, the day of the photo shoot, was iffy up until the last minute, Lisa Newman said.
The family and photographer sat under a tarp for about 15 minutes before the rain quit and Max and Case jumped into action.
In the end, the dreary day proved an asset.
“For a Saturday, the lake was kind of quiet because the rain kept everybody away,” Newman said.
The initial plan was for Max to start surfing from the platform at the back of the boat to prevent the cap and gown from getting wet. “But I just fell in immediately,” he said.
Even though the gown got drenched, Max was quite skillful on the board, Case said.
Once he had the momentum, Max would stand up, adjust his cap and gown, and start posing, she said.
“It was really quite amazing,” Case said.
Max said he’s been wake surfing for six years.
It’s different from the high-speed action of wakeboarding, he said, where a person is pulled by a rope like a water skier.
“Wake surfing is way slower paced. You go about 11 miles an hour, and you’re very close to the back of the boat, which is kind of cool because you can hear the music coming from the boat and you can just chill out,” Max said.
While wake surfers often start with a rope, Max said typically you let go and surf independently.
Case estimates she shot 800 images that day; she’s still culling through photos.
“This is definitely the most intense, crazy, unique, technically challenging thing I’ve done,” Case said. “I don’t know what else you could do to top it.”
Max used the Plainfield North gown his older brother wore for graduation, and his mom picked up a mortar board online so he wouldn’t ruin the actual cap and gown he’ll need for ceremonies in the spring.
More Top Picks Best Laptops For Students Under 500
Max is so happy with his senior photos, he plans to submit some to the school yearbook “so I can be immortalized.”
His favorite pose is when he’s throwing his cap in the air. “I think it just shows that I’m young and ready to move on to college,” Max said.