Sarah and Mark chose Mendon Ponds at the Cobblestone house because they’d gotten married there five years earlier – almost to the day.

Five years has brought them two beautiful children who tolerated the heat and crazy bugs beautifully. Remember bugs? Heat? Me neither!

Choosing a location that’s either beautiful or meaningful to you or both is the way to go. Ideally you want the session to be something you look back on fondly – that it was a fun experience in a peaceful place. We want to avoid the whole “remember that disaster!” feeling that parents sometimes feel walking out of chain store photo sessions. For location ideas be sure to check out how to choose a great location.

Remember when your mom’s arms could fix anything? Love the way this captures that very special relationship.

Grandma came along and jumped into a few photos. You’re always welcome to include as many people you like in a session – the session belongs to you to use however you’d like!

Thank you so much Sarah and Mark for sharing your beautiful family with me! It was a joy to work with you.

Their family has grown!  Since the last time I saw Stephanie and Dan, they welcomed their beautiful son Chase into the world.

They may quite possibly have the easiest to photograph kids on the planet. Both Chase and Conor were all smiles the whole time and reduced my job to basically pushing buttons.

Stephanie and Dan chose Mendon Ponds because it was the location of their last session. It’s so much fun to see the difference between then and now – including choosing some of the same spots for comparison.

If you need help with ideas for where you have your photo session, click here for how to choose a great photography location. Or for quick picks, check out the top 5 outdoor locations in Rochester.

Chase should totally be a baby model.

There’s nothing like hanging out with your dad. Is this not the best smile ever?

Moms of course, are also pretty awesome.

I loved their blue and white theme. This is harder to do than it looks! Stephanie did a fantastic job with everyone’s clothing. If you’d like to read more about how to choose clothes for your photo session, click here.

Thank you so much Stephanie and Dan for sharing your beautiful family with me!!!

The quintessential leaf throwing activities of toddlerhood are usually thwarted in climates like ours by cold weather.  This year the summer extended into fall and we had some truly lovely days for photo taking.

Dan and Stephanie had never tried out family photos before and wanted to include all members of the family, including their fur babies.

We went to the Mendon Ponds Bird Song Trail where if you’re very very still, chickadees will eat out of your hand. That’s more or less a no go if you have a toddler and two dogs, but if you were to go on a given day, you’ll find statuesque people along the trail vying for a little chickadee style attention.

The Bird Song Trail is also a great location for photos because of the way the path descends down the hill.

There were several inches of leaves near the Sensory Garden and Connor could have thrown them for another three hours.

The dogs worked with us for one more image and then wanted to chase the leaves themselves.

In a spot near the parking lot there’s another hill that lifts you up to folliage-behind-you level.  Flat ground doesn’t work when you’re trying to add fall leaf color to your images.  It’s important to be up high enough to have leaves behind your subject rather than tree trunks.  However, since it’s a parking lot, you may end up editing out some cars.  Also because it’s fall in Mendon Ponds, you may end up editing out some people.  And maybe also some photographers.  Thank you Photoshop for being there when we need you.

And another happy toddler photo. Toddlers, and kids in general, much prefer being outside for family photos since they’re in their natural environment. Usually it’s less stressful for them and they can associate photography with fun.

Thank you so much Dan and Stephanie for sharing your beautiful family with me!

Betty and Derek were originally scheduled for the session at Genesee Valley Park that got moved to Highland Park and then got rained out. We were grateful that this day had much better weather with plenty of leaves at Mendon Ponds for fun loving boys to play in.

Logan and Isaac ran circles around us and periodically stopped to appease the adults in their lives.

Derek has a real job I don’t remember (sorry Derek!) but his really interesting side job is voice acting. He said that voice actors can always create their own niche since their voice is unique to them and even demoed his radio announcer voice for me. He would love to voice act full time.

Betty works at Joann Fabrics and loves crafting. She really couldn’t name a favorite – crafty people can be like that I’ve learned. I would imagine that it could be a huge challenge not to spend your entire paycheck at work at a place like that!

This was about 1/100th of a second before the hugging turned into wrestling.

Both Isaac and Logan insisted on having their pictures taken at the hollow log. Pretty much every photographer in Rochester was at Mendon Ponds that day so we almost missed the light completely. Fortunately I had my own and we were able to catch those last few minutes of ambient light.

And because they’re super fun, here’s a flashback from 2011.

Thank you so much Betty and Derek for sharing you beautiful family with me! I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Danielle and Larry chose Mendon Ponds for their Mendon Ponds sibling photography and family session.

We started out the session with the sitting still images to maximize our chances with two active boys.

Sometimes hugs between brothers can digress into wrestling, but we got lucky this time.

And no session with Danielle and Larry is complete without a dance party.

The boys missed their very favorite baby sitter so she came by to join us for a little while. I always encourage families to include people, places or items that are special to them.

And they’re back in Colorado, hopefully planning another trip to Rochester! I miss you all!

Congratulations Jennifer.  I wish you all the best!