Some couples bring me a story. Kaitlyn and Charlie brought me a season. They didn't need a reason beyond "we love fall." The color, the cold air that makes you want to stand closer together, that specific brisk-but-cozy feeling October gets right before it turns into actual winter. That was the whole brief. So we went to Borderland State Park and let the leaves do a lot of the work. Here's the walk through it.
The trail
We started on one of the hiking trails, the kind with color receding behind you in every direction. I had them walk it, stop, turn toward each other, and pretty fast the posed part fell apart into laughing and whistling and just being two people who like being near each other. The trees were doing enough work that I kept everything soft. Shade the whole time, light diffused, nothing punchy. It reads dreamy because it was.
Ames Mansion
Then we walked over to the Ames mansion. Big, formal, historic, the kind of building that makes you want to stand up straight. So naturally we did the opposite. Running, twirling, full-body goofy right in front of it. The overcast sky gave us harder, more direct light out in the open field, which actually helped, the contrast between the serious architecture and two people acting ridiculous in front of it is most of what makes this set work.
Moments Deep in the trees
From there we went into the denser part of the park and got in close. Positioned them in a small pocket of light with darker trees and leaves surrounding them on every side, tight embraces, nowhere to look but at each other. This is the most romantic set of the day, and the light did most of the heavy lifting, that one pool of brightness surrounded by shadow makes the couple the only thing your eye can land on.
The picnic
We set up wine, cheese, crackers, a blanket in an open field. This one is just fun. Genuinely one of the most adorable things I got to shoot all fall. The light here went a little impressionistic, soft and warm in a way that matches the whole point of the scene, two people enjoying a slow afternoon together.
Lake Leach
Yes, that's really the lake's name. We ended the day walking the shoreline, finding spots with good reflections, opening up the lens a little wider to get something more epic feeling. A good way to close out a session that started tight on a trail and ended up wide open on the water.
