Award Winning Child & Family Photographer based in Asheville, NC shares helpful advice on finding the perfect location for your Family Portrait Session in Asheville!
Several years ago, I started offering “Adventure Sessions” because I noticed an uptick in the number of clients who wanted to shoot out (in) the mountains of WNC, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, at our Waterfalls and at some of our most beautiful, off the beaten path hiking destinations in Western North Carolina!
I needed to differentiate between a regular, in-town, Signature Portrait Session (shot in and around Asheville proper within a 15-20 minute or so radius of downtown Ashevillle) and an Adventure Portrait Session (shot out in the mountains, within a 1hr radius of Downtown Asheville)
The reason it became necessary to make a distinction between the two types of sessions is because (while I absolutely LOVE Adventure Sessions), shooting them turns a typical 1hr portrait session into a 3-4hr excursion with round trip travel time and hiking time, when applicable!
If I had to guess, I would estimate that approximately 75% of my portrait clients are visitors to the area and most are unaware of how rural this region actually is! Initially, most of my clients don’t realize that getting to our waterfalls, those bigger vistas out on the parkway or any of those epic hiking destinations they saw on instagram typically require a minimum of about 45min – 1.5hr driving time outside of the city of Asheville!
I LOVE being asked to go on Adventures out in these Beautiful, Blue Ridge Mountains with my Clients! I LOVE showing them the most beautiful parts of place where I grew up! I LOVE facilitating the making of Epic Vacation Memories (and photos) to take away from their trip to Asheville!
I mean, is there really anything better than Destination, Vacation Family Photography!?!? It’s how I document my own family! Whenever we travel, at least once per year, we always book a Family Portrait Session with a local photographer in the places that we travel to! It makes our albums, frames and walls way more interesting to look at! Having beautiful Family Portrait Sessions from all over the country to remember our travels in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, California, Oregon, Washington and Arizona than it does to have all of our family pictures with the same geography, right!?!?
“I have small children who won’t tolerate an hour in the car + a hike, what about us, can we still get pretty Mountain Views for our Family Portraits?”
In a word: Yassss Girl!
There are a few things to remember here:
- This is not your last family portrait session ever! You will have other opportunities as they grow, to reach those more epic, off the beaten path hiking destinations for your family portraits, when they’re a little older and can tolerate the drive + the hike to get there!
- Asheville IS in the mountains of Western North Carolina! You can definitely see the mountains in the distance from lots of places near the city! Just understanding that the vantage point from the city looks different at this lower elevation than it does from those higher elevations out on the Blue Ridge Parkway or at some of those Epic, Instagram Hiking Spots you’ve seen!
- During your Pre-Session Phone Consultation, we’ll chat about your hopes and desires for location, we’ll talk about your family and your children, timing and logistics and I will definitely find a location that will be perfect for your family!
This sweet family, had traveled to Asheville from Missouri last fall. They had two small children and it was just a short trip for them. Mom knew her babies and she didn’t think that an Epic Blue Ridge Parkway Adventure Session was in the cards for them on this trip. So, I suggested this beautiful location, that’s just about a 10 minutes drive outside of downtown Asheville and about a 15-20 minute walk to the top! This location didn’t require too much from the girls to get there and it gave mom and dad a little of what hey were hoping for in terms of capturing some mountain views in their family photos!
