Many of my clients who book outdoor family session choose a “park” location for their shoot. Northern Virginia offers photographers (and their clients) plenty of wonderful parks suitable for any taste – large and small, wooded or not, with or without playgrounds, gazebos, flowers, and so on. I personally love-love-love parks for outdoor sessions involving families with young children (especially toddlers)Â – kids can play, run around, blow bubbles, and have fun with their parents.
Needless to say, parks are not “the only” or “the best” option for an outdoor session with your photographer. There are many alternatives to choose from, one of my favorite local options is Fairfax Corner. It offers a good combination of “greenery” and “flowers” for some shots as well as more urban look for others. I usually meet my clients at the fountain plaza in front of the movie theater (great! in summer if you are looking for some really fun summer shots of your kids playing in the fountain). Here are some collages from a family photo session I did a couple of weeks ago at Fairfax Corner (I also posted a sneak peak earlier as well).
First I did some portrait shots of the super handsome and adorable brothers playing on a bench:
Then I did some sequences with Mom and Dad and each of the kids. Below are my faves. Some of the collages I put together are “fun”, “action” shots. I especially loved how both kids really-really wanted to play with Mom’s gorgeous hair
We did get some beautiful, traditional “smiling and looking at the camera” shots as well.
This sweet baby boy cooperate really well and gave me tons of smiles and wonderful shots. Mom also brought this awesome hat for the shoot and Baby had so much fun trying it on!
Some of the above portraits of Baby in the making: the hat was obviously a bit too big so it would slide down over his eyes (which was so funny!) and he’d try to crawl away from our little “set” with the hat like this. Of course, Mom was standing nearby to pick him up and place him on the blankets (all the while keeping him happy and entertained and shaking his toy to get his attention).
As you can see from the above shots, Fairfax Corner has several wonderful setups to offer photographers and clients – beautiful wooden yellow wall with shutters, textured concrete sidewalk with a brick wall, raised flower beds -all offer different setups for a variety of images!