Family Shoot With the Stephensons

Let me just start by saying… this particular shoot had a lot of challenges that I was not expecting. BUT it was so worth it in the end! 

It all started back in October. Ashlee reached out to me to get a family session set up and we got a date set for the beginning of November. A week out, we saw the weather was going to be rainy, but we decided to wait until the day of to see if the weather changed before cancelling the session. Sure enough, day of the shoot had thunder showers and snow. It was a little tricky because I was also traveling 3 hours north toward the Logan, Utah area where the family lives, so I was trying to avoid getting stuck in the snow on the way back to Utah valley. Thats just the nature of scheduling these sessions, though! There are so many factors to take into consideration.

Anyway, so we decided to postpone the shoot by a week. The next weekend came and it turned out a couple family members were sick, and can’t do the shoot that day. We postponed the session for the week before Thanksgiving. Lo and behold, I get sick! Wah-wah. The session gets postponed until after Thanksgiving…

First week of December comes, and it finally happens! So I fill up on gas and head out with an extra hour to spare so I can get there early and get my bearings. We decided on a place called Tony Grove, just about an hour North-East of Logan. Alright, now listen here. I had never been to Tony Grove, neither had my clients, I’ve just seen pictures (and it looked so beautiful!) so I didn’t really have a firm idea of what I was getting myself in to. That was mistake #1.

So, I’m driving up there and it starts to get pretty snowy. It wasn’t much at first, just a patch of snow here and there. I have a Subaru so I wasn’t super concerned. Then, the road narrows and the patches of snow turn into literal glaciers. Okay, not glaciers but there was a lot of ice and snow. At one point it gets so bad, but I was only 10 minutes away from the parking lot so I trudged on. I wasn’t about to let a little ice get in the way of getting some amazing shots. I tried calling anyway to warn my client, but guess what—no service.

Welp, this was bad. I decided to try to keep going. However, my hopes were quickly crushed when I come up on two cars that had gotten stuck in the snow. One guy had been there since 8am! poor guy.

 “Alright” I thought, “That’s a sign I should definitely turn back.” I ended up giving my ice scraper thingy to one of the people who got their car stuck (my feeble attempt to help 🤷🏻‍♀️).

Okay let me explain this situation I was in: everywhere but the road behind me had was super deep, fluffy snow so obviously, I was super nervous to deviate off the road. I couldn’t turn around, so I straight up just drove in reverse for a while. At one point I thought I was in the clear so I tried turning around. Haha, NOPE. It didn’t take a lot to get super stuck. 

I got out, and mentally cursing my kindness at giving my ice scraper to someone else, I began to dig out my back tires. Luckily, with a lot of digging, maneuvering, and praying, I got out in 15 minutes. *phew*

Driving back was far easier than driving up the mountain (thank heaven). I got about 10 minutes down the road when I saw Tanner and Ashlee driving up. After giving them the rundown of everything that had happened up til that point, we decided to go to a field at the base of the mountain for the pictures. 

Don’t get me wrong; I was pretty disappointed that we didn’t make it to Tony Grove but this other location we found was DREAMY. Pretty aspen trees, a beautiful little frozen stream, and it had a decent view of the canyon! All things considered, the session turned out great and I was super satisfied with how the pictures turned out. And everyone was safe, so you can’t beat that.

My favorite pictures are the ones on the road with aspen trees on either side. Those, and definitely the ones with the frozen stream with the sun shining through the tree branches. I really wanted to capture how the light was shining on the ice with the shadows of late afternoon stretching toward us. I love the way light can truly transform an image. Okay, DUH, light determines a lot about an image. But manipulating the light in a way that really makes you take a look at the small details is so fascinating to me.

I definitely learned a few things in this process: 1) be flexible and be willing to change things up if necessary and 2) always do a lot of research on a location if you haven’t been there before. Things won’t always work out the way I want them to, but if I keep a good attitude and have an open mind, amazing things can happen!