I went back and checked the file dates on this session before I wrote any of this, because I had it in my head as a summer shoot. It was the middle of October. The canopy is still green, there are roses still open, and the whole thing ran on late morning light.
I Photographed Her Wedding, Then I Kept Photographing Them
I shot the Cordes wedding first. Then they had their first son, and this was about the third time I had photographed him.
That is the part of this job that nobody tells you about when you start. You show up for one day, the biggest one they have planned so far, and if it goes well you end up watching the rest of it happen. A wedding, then a newborn, then a kid who can run, then a kid who has opinions about what he is wearing. I have families I have been photographing for over a decade now and I would not trade that for anything.
Laurel Acres Park, Mount Laurel
We shot at Laurel Acres Park. If you have driven through Mount Laurel you have probably seen the giant hill there, the one everybody sleds down, which looks out over the whole park. There is also a small lake, a rock ledge big enough to sit on, and a tall grassy area that photographs beautifully when the light hits it.
We spent most of the session in one specific spot, a little nook right where a pathway opens into the woods. It is maybe thirty feet of ground and it does everything. Trees close overhead, the path running back behind for depth, and open sky at the entrance throwing light into their faces. I have shot there enough to know exactly where to stand.
Late morning in the woods gets a bad reputation and it should not. The canopy breaks the sun up before it lands, so you get soft light on skin with hard bright patches down the path behind, and that separation is what makes these look the way they do.
You Do Not Ask a Toddler to Pose
Here is the whole strategy for photographing a kid this age. Stop asking him to do anything.
Every family session with a little one runs the same way if you let it. You lose the first ten minutes to somebody trying to get him to look at me and smile, which never works and usually ends with everybody a little tense. So we skip that. I hand him back to his parents and tell them to play with him and completely ignore me.
Dad throwing him in the air did more for this gallery than any amount of directing would have. The kid laughs, the parents laugh at the kid laughing, and now I have three real faces instead of three people waiting for me to say go.
Then Mom Got Him
Same thing on her side. She scooped him up and held him out in front of her, and I kept working around them, changing my angle instead of changing what they were doing.
This is also why I shoot a session like this on one lens and stay close. I am not standing thirty feet back calling out instructions. I am inside the conversation, which is the only way you get expressions like these.
Let Him Go Explore
Once we had the frames the family actually came for, I turned him loose in the park and followed.
He went for the roses, which is the detail that still gets me about this session. Roses still open in the middle of October, right there in front of him. Then the water, where he walked to the edge and stood looking at it with his back to all of us. Then the rock, which he climbed over and over.
None of that is a photograph you can plan. You can only put a kid somewhere interesting and be ready.
Black and White for the Quiet Frames
I convert to black and white when the color in a frame is fighting the moment instead of helping it. On a green lawn in October there is a lot of color competing for attention, and when what matters is a dad with his arms around his kid, the green has to go.
These are the frames from the back half of the session, sitting on the grass and on the rock, when he had run himself most of the way out and everybody slowed down.
Portraits of Just Him
I pull individuals aside at every family session, no matter how small the family is. With one child that means a handful of frames of just him, made in the same light as everything else.
A family photograph records who was there. A portrait records what one person looked like that year. Their son is going to change more between now and next fall than his parents will in ten, so these are the ones I push hardest for.
The Walk Out
We finished on the paved path heading back toward the lot, the three of them holding hands, with the one stretch of actual fall color in the whole park behind them. He threw both arms out wide and never let go of his mom, which is how most of my sessions with a little one end.
If You Are Planning a Park Session With a Little One
Book late morning, after the nap and before lunch falls apart. Everybody wants the end of the day because that is the light they have seen on the internet, and then the kid melts down at exactly the hour we needed him. A shaded park at eleven in the morning is a better photograph than an open field at seven with a toddler who is finished.
Pick a park with a few different looks inside a short walk, so nobody is loading a car seat between setups. Laurel Acres has woods, a lake, a rock, a hill and open lawn within a few hundred feet of each other, which is the entire reason I keep going back.
And do it more than once. This family has now done this several times, and lined up in order those galleries are worth more than any single one of them is on its own.
Location: Laurel Acres Park, Mount Laurel, New Jersey
Photography: Jordan Brian Studios
Ready to Start Planning?
If your family is thinking about a session at a park in South Jersey, or in Philadelphia, or 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.