A Fun Family At A Remarkable Location

I was fortunate to be shown this location by talented fellow photographer Ashleigh Wells. It was at the base of several mountains outside of Vancouver, B.C., Canada. The area was a flat marshy basin that collected most of the run off from the mountains in the background. You can see a huge waterfall high up on the mountain in one of the shots – we could hear that distant thunder of the water and it was so incredibly inspiring!

And what a wonderful family to photograph! All 3 kids were excited to be there and it was fun to let them run around and really show their personality. My challenge was to get the personality of the little ones but not lose the majesty of the location and the mountains behind them. For this session, I chose my longest lens, the 70-200, and used its background compression capability at 200mm to make those mountains seem much bigger but also much closer. Had I gone wide, I would have lost the strength and height of the mountains and they would have been tiny car-sized objects in the distance (and I would have lost the waterfall!).

There were two places to shoot – on the levy or in the marshy area (which fortunately did not have mosquitoes yet and the waters hadn’t melted enough to flood the area with mud). Ashleigh had timed the location perfectly – it would be unshootable there nearly any other time of the year.

Since the family had so much life and personality (and a really down to earth sensibility), I wanted to capture that emotion through kinetic images. It would really have been a disservice to have just had them sit there and smile at the camera – that’s not how that family is in real life. They are all over the place, enjoying life and really living it with strength and purpose. So I shot images of them playing, running around, and moving.

For the family shots, I positioned them at the curve of the levy with the mountains and waterfall in the background. I walked all the way to the other end of the levy and shot at 200mm on my stomach – very low to the ground so I could get those mountains in the composition. Sometimes, just having a ‘group hug!!’ yelled is the best direction and the first shot was a product of jumping on mom to show her how much they loved her!

For the rest of the shoot, I followed each kid and tried to find each personality. The girl was a sweetheart – outgoing and friendly like her mom! The youngest was quiet and reserved – introspective and observant. For him, it was about showing his exploration of that beautiful location. And for his older brother – he was quite the firecracker! I backed off and let him do his own thing and just waited for the moments to happen while shooting.

In all, it was an amazing day with a beautiful family at a majestic location. For a photographer, it doesn’t get any better than that!