I grew up in Medford. The hill behind the library is where I went sledding every winter I can remember, and the ravine at the bottom of it runs back into the park behind the property. I have known that piece of ground since I was too small to drag a sled up it by myself.
So when this family asked for fall photographs, I did not have to think about where.
This One Is Just the Kids
I photographed their wedding a couple of years back. There are four kids now, three sisters and a baby, and this session is all four of them and nobody else. No parents in a single frame. That was on purpose.
It is not how I run most family sessions and I would not suggest it as the only set a family ever does. But a group of photographs that is only the kids ages differently than the rest. In twenty years none of these four will remember standing in the leaves on a Tuesday afternoon. They will look at these and remember that they had each other.
The Hour Before Golden Hour
We started a little before three in the afternoon, two days before Thanksgiving. Sunset that day was around half past four, which put the whole session inside the hour before golden hour. That is the light I book these around, and behind the Medford library it is as good as it gets in South Jersey.
Late November scares people off. They decide that if they did not book in the middle of October they missed the whole thing. Look at this gallery. The beeches hold their leaves longer than anything else in those woods, the ground was ankle deep in gold, and by three o’clock the sun was low enough to come through all of it sideways instead of down through the top. You have more fall left than you think you do.
Start With the Baby
A baby gives you a window and the window is short. Twenty good minutes, sometimes less, so you spend them first and you do not negotiate about it.
We put a blanket down in a patch of open sun and I shot the baby alone for a few minutes while the older three ran laps behind me and got rid of whatever needed getting rid of. Everybody came out of that first ten minutes with exactly what they needed.
Then the Three of Them
The beeches back there grow close together with almost nothing underneath them, so you get a clean floor of leaves and a ceiling of gold and no clutter in between. I put the three sisters under the biggest one and let the sun come through the canopy behind their heads.
Give three sisters thirty seconds together and they sort themselves out without any help from me. The oldest ends up holding whoever needs holding. The little one ends up in the middle of everything. My job at that point is to stay out of the way and keep the sun behind them.
I Photograph Every Kid on Their Own
I do this at every session with more than one child in it, and it is the thing families come back and thank me for years later. Every one of them alone, at that age, on that day. You will get the group photographs no matter what. You almost never get a real portrait of a five year old on a random afternoon unless somebody makes a point of it.
I ran the same idea all the way out at a family reunion I photographed in Philadelphia, where I shot an individual portrait of every single person who showed up. Those sets look incredible hung together on a wall, and they are impossible to go back and make later.
Sisters, Two at a Time
Pairs happen on their own at a session like this. Two of them peel off, or one grabs the other, and for a few seconds they are dealing with each other instead of with me.
The two oldest went first, hand in hand, one of them laughing hard enough that her head went all the way back. Then the middle one got hold of the youngest and pressed her face into her cheek. Four frames, two at a time, and the only thing I did was keep the sun behind them.
Hand in Hand
Somewhere in the middle of it the youngest ended up in between her two big sisters with a hand in each of theirs. Nobody told her to.
The oldest had her other arm up in the branches and the sun came through the canopy over the top of all three of them. If I had staged that it would look staged. Because I did not, it is probably the frame the parents printed.
When the Baby Came Back In
Late in the session we brought the baby back in with the sisters, and all three of them dropped everything and swarmed. There was no direction involved in this one.
This is the part of a session I protect. Once kids have burned off the standing still and the smiling on command, they go back to being who they are with each other, and that is when the photographs stop looking like photographs.
Down in the Meadow
There is a stretch of tall seed grass past the tree line that goes completely translucent when the sun gets behind it. We walked down with the last of the good light, and partway through it I put the 85 back on the camera without really thinking about why.
Looking at the files now it is obvious why. Wide open on a long lens, that grass stops being grass and turns into a solid wall of light with one kid standing in the middle of it. The last third of this gallery is all from those five minutes.
The Last Frame
The baby had had enough by then, which is exactly what a baby is supposed to do half an hour into a session. The oldest got the two younger ones in under her arms first, all three of them standing in that grass with the sun going down behind them.
Then she took the baby, tipped her face down into the top of that head, and the two younger ones closed in on either side. That is the last photograph in the gallery and it is the one I would print biggest.
If You Are Planning a Fall Family Session in South Jersey
Book the hour before sunset and build the day around it. Everything on this page happened inside about thirty five minutes. Move the nap, move lunch, move whatever you have to move. There is no lighting setup that buys you what the sky hands you for free at that hour.
Do not write off late November. Beech and oak hold gold long after the maples have quit, and the low sun in the last week of the month is better than anything you get in early October.
And let them play. The frames on this page that everybody loves are the boot that came up out of the leaves, the youngest in between her sisters with a hand in each of theirs, and the oldest tipping her face down into a baby’s hair, and I did not direct one of them. Pick a place the kids can move around in and give the session enough room to stop being a session.
Location: the woods behind the Medford library, Medford, New Jersey
Photography: Jordan Brian Studios
Ready to Start Planning?
If your family is thinking about a session in South Jersey, in Philadelphia, or down at the shore, I would love to hear about it. You can see more family sessions in the portfolio, read about how family sessions work, take a look at a family reunion session in Philadelphia, or get in touch and tell me what you have in mind.