Late to the Fall Color Party? Try Winter for Your Family Photos

I don’t know about you, but November for the Patels was a dizzying, chaotic month. My calendar was full of families grabbing the last of the fall color for their family photo sessions. Add in a major holiday (for which we traveled), a death in the family (for which we traveled), and all four of us sick or injured in some way (which we got while traveling), and I’m sitting here several days into December still just trying to catch my breath and figure out where we are.

If you’re in the same boat, welcome. If you’re in the additional boat of having not managed to schedule family photos while the fall color gettin’ was good, today’s post is for you.

Whatever your reason for missing this year’s fall color, you’re either feeling one of two emotions right now: relief, because you “can’t” schedule family photos in winter; or panic, because you “can’t” schedule family photos in winter.

You actually can schedule family photos in winter, despite what you keep telling yourself. You might just need to be a little more strategic about how you do it. Luckily, I have ideas for you for how to make your family photos beautiful and fun:

Stay outside and choose to embrace winter.

Did you notice the frost and the soft winter light yesterday morning as you left for work? It was freezing cold, but so gorgeous as the car exhaust hung in the air like breath. (Don’t inhale car exhaust. I’m just saying it was really pretty.)

Picture this: Red looks amazing in winter. Do you look amazing in red? Sweaters, a scarf, and gloves overtop thermal layers, and paired with dark gray wool. Don’t look amazing in red? Ditch the red and go with cream, gray, brown, dark green, and/or navy blue. I’m talking full-on embrace winter. Choose an evergreen location, like magnolia trees at Maymont, bamboo trees at Deep Run Park, the river at Belle Isle, or even a location full of concrete and murals like downtown Richmond, which has no bare trees and doesn’t scream “dead of winter.”

Or, choose indoor and all its warmth.

Stay cozy. Wear fuzzy socks and whatever clothes you want to because it’s a casual, fun family session inside your home. What do you do on weekend mornings in winter with your family? What would you do for an hour with your kids, if you were forced to stay home? Would you cuddle up on the couch and read books together? Would you drag out the dress-up basket and help the kids become their favorite superheroes? Would you just sit and stare out the window with a cup of coffee and a stuffed animal, waiting for a dog to wander by? What if you wore matching family pjs and played games on the floor in the family room?

Two ideas, two very different feels for a family photo session. One frosty and adventurous, the other cozy and hibernatorial (I just made up a word to make “hibernate” an adjective).

And then there’s the hybrid version of both of these: a backyard session, where you play with your family for 30 minutes outside, and then come inside and warm up with hot cocoa and books on the couch. Or cookie baking in the kitchen.

If you were feeling panic because you “couldn’t” schedule family photos before you read this, and yet the kids keep growing, and you missed yet another year of fall color photos, consider a winter session for your family, either outdoors, indoors, or as a hybrid version.

Want to read more about indoor family sessions? Check out this post that I wrote for the hotness of summer, this one where I argue about why you should have family photos done in your kitchen, and this post where I bust out Pete Seeger and talk about choosing the best time to have a professional photograph you and your family.