We love location sessions. We built our business on them; initially through necessity, then as an active choice. What do we mean by location session? A shoot outside of the studio - in our case, in the park.
And why do we love them for our location family shoots? Let us count the ways…
First and foremost, because being out in nature is far more normal an environment for families. A studio can be a strange and intimidating place - lights, wires, blank walls and all that. The park is big, open and familiar. It’s much easier to get a child to relax somewhere they are comfortable. It’s much easier to get adults to relax somewhere they are comfortable (and they know the kids won’t kick over lights…). Relaxed and comfortable people look better in photographs.
Then there’s the light. The sun is the best light source a photographer can have. And you can use different times of day to get different looks (the golden hour is beloved by photographers for a reason). And if the sun is being tricksy, a good photographer can add lights of their own to add some drama, a different look, or to ignore the sun…
A location shoot provides variety - almost any park will have spaces where you can get a completely different background in a couple of minutes’ walk. Wide open grassland? Trees? A bridge over a stream? All here…
Because the parks we work in are huge, we find new places each time, so every session is unique. And as the seasons change, the same location can look completely different - lush greens and flowers in spring, browns and oranges in autumn. Sometimes even snow in the winter. Whatever the weather (give or take the odd deluge or hurricane, for which we do reschedule), the end result is beautiful.
Finally, location shoots don’t limit the number of people we can have in our shoots. Now, this might be because our studio is bijou, but even in larger studios you have to spend time making sure everybody is evenly lit. Outdoors is much easier. We’ve done shoots of over 25 people (plus dogs), and they look fantastic. Less time messing around with lights is more time taking actual photographs - and that’s what you want from a session.
If that doesn’t convince you to book one of our location sessions (here), nothing will. Although you might want to read our counterpoint first…