Senior portraits that are 80% background -- Is this a trend? [View all]

I see FaceBook ads for local photographers that will shoot high school senior portraits. Their example photos have the subjects' head in the middle of the frame and most of the image is background, usually outdoors, trees, grass etc. Same for wedding photos. And some do maternity photos outdoors in tall grass.

When I saw the first of these I thought it was just someone trying to make extra money. But then I saw a local studio who has been at it for 40 years (second generation now) and their photos were cropped the same way.

The full body + casual thing is nice but filling the frame with blurry background seems entirely wrong to me. Am I just old?