There is exactly one thing every UCF student is told never to do. Do not step on the Pegasus seal.
Four years of walking the long way around it. Then one afternoon you get to stand right in the middle of it, in a gown, on purpose.
That single photo is why a lot of grads book a session. It is also why I plan the entire walk around getting there while the light is still worth something.
You Do Not Need A Shot List. You Need About Ninety Minutes.
Almost everyone shows up a little worried they are going to look stiff. You will not, because I am not going to ask you to hold a pose.
I give you easy things to do instead. Walk toward me. Fix your cap. Turn to your friend and tell them something true. The photo that ends up framed at your parents' house is almost never the one where everybody was looking at the camera.
What you actually need is time. A UCF session runs ninety minutes to two hours, and that sounds generous until you see how far apart these buildings are. Rushing is the thing that makes grad photos look rushed.
Here is the loop, in the order I walk it.
Get To The Reflecting Pond Before Everyone Else Does
This is the most photographed spot on campus and there is a reason. Open water, palms, a clean line of sky, and enough symmetry that you do not have to do anything clever to make it work.
It is also where every other grad in Orlando is heading. In November and December there will be three or four families circling at any given time.
Being first is the whole trick. Late afternoon light, an empty edge of the pond, and about fifteen minutes before it gets busy.
And it is where the loud part happens. If you brought people with you, this is where the confetti and the champagne go, and almost everybody ends up standing in the water for it. That is the closest thing UCF has to a graduation tradition nobody put in a handbook, and it is usually the frame that gets posted.
Millican Hall Gives You Shade When Nothing Else Will
Florida in December is still bright at two in the afternoon, and open sun is unkind to a black gown and a face under a cap brim.
Millican solves it. A covered brick walkway, repeating columns, and a corridor that pulls your eye straight down to the person standing in it. The light in there is soft and even all day, which means it is the one spot on this list that works no matter when we start.
If your session lands earlier than I would like, we start here.
The L3Harris Engineering Center Is For The People Who Earned It There
If you spent four years inside this building, you already know why it is on the list. L3Harris houses the College of Engineering and Computer Science. Classrooms, research labs, faculty offices. It is where the all nighters happened, and where the group project either worked or did not.
But the reason it is in the loop is the walk up to it. There is a straight run of palms and low benches leading to the building, and late in the day the light comes down that corridor from behind.
It is the best place on campus for the people who came with you. Everybody sits, you walk, and nobody has to arrange themselves into a line. That is the frame where your friends actually look like themselves instead of like a group photo.
The Pegasus Seal Takes Five Minutes And You Will Not Skip It
Inside the Student Union, on the floor, the thing you have spent your entire degree stepping around.
It photographs quickly. We are in and out in five minutes. But it is the one frame on this list that means nothing to anyone who did not go to UCF and everything to everyone who did.
Some grads want it solo and serious. Some want the whole group standing on it at once because they have all been waiting four years for the same permission. Both work.
The Union is also worth ten extra minutes on the way out. It is air conditioned, the light under the rotunda is even, and it is the easiest place to get a close portrait once the walking is done.
The John C. Hitt Library Is The One People Forget To Ask For
Wide steps, a glass front, and the building's name across it in letters big enough to read in the frame.
That last part matters more than people expect. It is the one location on this list that says where you are without anyone having to caption it. And the steps give you height, so you can turn back over your shoulder from a few stairs up and the whole front of the building sits behind you.
It also sits close enough to the Union that we can do it right after the seal without losing light.
Dress For The Two Inches The Gown Does Not Cover
The gown hides more than you think. What actually shows up in every frame is your neckline, your shoes, and your hands.
So pick a neckline that sits above the zip, wear shoes you can walk a campus loop in, and skip anything with a loud pattern that fights the gown. Solid colors under a black gown photograph cleanly every time. Bring the cords, the stole, the sash, all of it, and let me worry about how they sit.
One thing worth doing the night before: steam the gown or hang it in the bathroom while you shower. They ship folded, and creases across the chest are the one thing I cannot fix later.
Park Once, And Tell Your Family Where To Put The Car
If you are still a student, your permit already covers you and this section is not really for you. Park where you always park and walk.
It is the people meeting you who get caught out. Parents driving in from out of town, a friend who graduated last year, anyone without a current decal. UCF requires a permit for visitors, and sorting it out in a lot while you are already in a gown is a bad start to the afternoon.
A daily visitor permit is $8 and good for twenty four hours, or they can pay by the hour through ParkMobile. Visitor permits are valid in green student or visitor parking areas only. Those are the rules as UCF Parking Services publishes them, so send whoever is driving to the parking site the week before in case anything has changed.
Either way, park once. The loop above is walkable, and moving cars three times is how a ninety minute session turns into a two hour one.
Book It Before December, Not During
Fall commencement is Friday December 11 and Saturday December 12 this year, at Addition Financial Arena. Ticket pickup runs November 30 through December 4.
Which means the first two weeks of December are finals, ceremony rehearsal, family flying in, and a campus full of people doing exactly what you are trying to do.
Shoot in November. The gown has already arrived, the weather has finally turned, campus is calm, and you get your gallery back before anyone asks you for a graduation announcement photo.
If you want the longer version of the timing argument, I already wrote one: get them done before finals eat your life.
What A UCF Session Includes
UCF Knights sessions start at $395 and run ninety minutes to two hours across the locations above. Confetti and a champagne bottle are included, and so are up to three friends. Additional friends are $25 each.
Every photo comes back as a high resolution file in an online gallery you can share with your family, download from, and order prints through. There is no cap on downloads. Most photographers cap it. I do not. Download some of them or download all of them, it is entirely your call.
The full gallery is back with you within three weeks.
One Last Thing
The best frame from a UCF session is usually not the one you planned. It is the one right after, when you exhale and look at your friend and realize the whole thing is actually over.
I will be watching for that one. You just have to show up and let the afternoon happen.
If December is on your calendar, November is when we shoot.
David Stella Photography
Orlando and Central Florida
321.475.7792
