How to choose the best location for your outdoor photography session
Central Coast Family Photographer
Families who are keen to get out and about for their photography session often ask me “where should we go?”. The options are limitless, so in the interest of making things a little easier, here’s a few points I think about when deciding on a location…
MEANINGFUL
INTENTION
SECLUSION
VARIETY
MEANINGFUL
Think about your normal week or month with your family and the places you visit on regular basis. Are you beach bums like me, with salty hair and sandy toes? Do you have a favourite bushwalk you love coming back to? Maybe you spend every spare minute with your minis at the skatepark? Do you have a favourite café where they know your kids favourite milkshakes? When everyone is feeling relaxed in familiar surroundings, you’ll find your session is so much easier. You want your photographs and albums to be a reflection of who you are in this moment. When you look back on these images in years to come the memories associated with your special location will make the photographs seem that much sweeter.
INTENTION
What are you hoping your family will do at this location? If your intention is for natural photographs in the bushland surrounding at the park, but your little ones spot the playground equipment and just want to play on that instead… let’s just say it may be that your intentions and the kids intentions are a little different. Awkward. In the interests of making life easy for you, if you’re looking for a nature based session, I generally avoid locations with a playground. There’s only so many photos of the kids going down the fireman’s pole that you need hanging on your wall.
SECLUSION
Crowded places, like city streets or busy parks are some of the more difficult places for a family photography session. In these situations you spend a lot of time waiting for people to move out of the frame and will often have an audience watching your session, which can make you feel self-conscious and make it difficult to relax. Fortunately for us on the Central Coast, finding a quiet location is not too hard to find. Even at our busy parks and beaches, you often only need to talk a few hundred metres and you’ll have the place to yourselves. Perfect.
VARIETY
Your family photography session will last for at least an hour, so we want to keep your kiddos happy and busy during that time. For this, variety is the spice of life. When choosing a location you want a place that has room to move, play and explore. Many of my families choose to start their sessions at their local lake and then walk around to the beach. This gives the kids a couple of different locations to play and explore and adds variety to your finished images. Bushwalks also allow for movement and exploration, with a variety of scene changes. Rock platforms at the beach are another great option that encourage movement and provide different backdrops for your photographs. Remember though – if your session is near water, your kids will invariably end up wet. I’m up for that – so long as you are too!!
So that’s my go-to guide for choosing a location for your family photography session on the Central Coast.
If you would like to book your own family photography session, please get in touch.