Trying to get photos of little kids is never without it’s challenges.  One child is of course, the most manageable, though  you can only do so much with one child during a session–you can’t mix up combinations of kids or do different groupings within the family. Add one or two more kids and you get more options.  But give me five kids, and the options are nearly limitless!  Five kids during photos is challenging, I’m not going to lie.  Five kids that are all boys?  Even more so.  Luckily, I have three of my own, so boys don’t scare me 🙂

But add in a thousand more people to the equation?  Well, you have one big chaotic interesting session.  And that’s exactly what we had on this lovely fall evening  . . .

We set our shooting location a few days before our session.  I knew there would be great color still left here, and was looking forward to our session.  I arrived a little bit early to drive around and find the best possible place to shoot at the park, and when I entered the park, I nearly peed my pants.  The entire park was lined with cars and cars and more cars.  People were literally everywhere.  There was no time to choose another location since there wasn’t anything else nearby, and even if we drove 20 minutes to another location, we wouldn’t have had enough light to complete our full session, which I knew would most likely be over an hour. I drove through the throngs of cars and people, literally with my jaw dropped.

Turns out, there was a cross country meet that day.  EVERY SINGLE high school in the county was there with their cross country team.  And everyone seemed to have brought loads of people with them too.

I drove through the park and found a spot that looked a little bit empty and that looked workable.  We parked there, got out and got started.  Five minutes later, hundreds of runners came bursting out of the woods next to us.  Welp, guess we had chosen a location on the course. . . it looked empty because no one had gotten that far in the race yet, and there weren’t any observers there.

I literally have never had a situation like that happen before. . . sure, there have been events at my shooting locations, but we’ve been able to work around them because there were other places to use.  But literally, this park was saturated.  Thank goodness these wonderful parents were so laid back.  So we waited for the runners.  We shot some more of our session.  We waited a second time as they looped around for the second time.  And then they were gone for good.  A session with five kids needs lots of breaks anyways, so the stop and go wasn’t terrible.  Just not ideal. Overall though?  We still captured their here and now pretty accurately.

I’m so thankful for families like this–families that I have done multiples sessions for.  That I’ve gotten to know.  I know a little bit about their kids and their personalities when we arrive.  I know some things they like.  I can carry on a conversation with their lovely momma during our session because I know some thing about her.  I cherish loyal clients who trust me.  And after this fiasco with the cross country meet, and the images that Kelly loved still from the session even though it was a bit busier than normal, I hope she continues to put her trust in me 🙂

Five boys?  Not a problem 🙂