With summer drawing to a close and fall creeping in on us family portrait season is right around the corner. Photographing families is always an adventure and I simply love it. The Halliday family was no exception, they were fantastic to work with! Part of that adventure was photographing at Lake Conestee Nature Park. I have never been there and wasn’t entirely sure where to shoot since there are multiple park entrances and trails. The trail I choose to meet the Halliday family unfortunately didn’t leave us much time for portraits, as the gate closed early. Thankfully I arrived early enough to discover this and drove to another park entrance to scout out another trail. Although I was disappointed we didn’t get to photograph at the first location, the second location was just as pretty.
Upon arriving at the park, the Halliday boys immediately jumped out of the van and proceeded to show me the toys they had brought. I was shown Pete the Cat and several very cool lego action figures, along with a pretty cool looking camera. I joked with the boys that we’d have to compare photos later.
Our session started off with a few family images. I always try to start with the large group first, for several reasons. One, photographing the kids with their parents allows them to become comfortable with me. It shows them I’m nothing to be afraid of and I might actually be kind of fun. And secondly, the kids are usually less crazy and will cooperate better than when we’re all friends and running around like silly people.
I then photograph the kids, both as a group and individually. We’ll throw in a few more family photos as the session progresses. Once we have all the family and children’s photographs, I will always take several photos of mom and dad. Again, for several reasons, one simply being the wife managed to get the husband to dress up for photos and she’s looking amazing, so of course, we need a photograph of that! And secondly, it’s important to have photographs of mom and dad for your children and not just the one taken from your wedding twelve years ago. Its part of your legacy as parents and a couple.
I enjoyed this family session at Lake Conestee Nature Park with the Halliday family! Here’s a few of my favorite images from their portrait session!
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