In the Cold of Wintertime

I have been photographing Dylan since he was two. He is sometimes quiet (for the first 5 minutes of any portrait session and then he gets silly. His mom is Autumn and is the best all around employee for the studio I could ask for. Naturally, his mom and I are always conspiring to come up with something new and creative for his portrait sessions and pushing his patience to the limits.

For his sixth birthday, Mom wanted to do outdoor portraits. It is January so my first thought was, "Really? Are you sure about this?" Temperatures were well below freezing but it was sunny the day she called. I checked out the forecast and it was supposed to stay cold and dry for a couple of days before the rains returned. I looked at the choice between cold and dry and cold and wet and decided that dry sounded really good to me!


The Filbert Orchard
I had been driving by a filbert orchard a few days earlier and loved the starkness of the bare trees, the blanket of soft brown leaves on the ground, and the symmetry of row after row of trees and was inspired to photograph someone in an orchard. Now was my chance!
We did a few with his little sister, Addie....

And some more with the dog....


Then we went to a spot with rusting carcasses of ancient railroad cars....
When we were all done, our noses were red and our fingers were numb but the images are awesome and Dylan (a rough and tumble outdoor boy through and through) had a great time!