Happy Place Sessions | Capturing Your Family in your Family's Special Place | Parking Garage in Lansdale, PA

In my opinion, the best place for a photo session is in your family's happy place.

For my family, that is Hacks Point, where my husband's uncle owns a ramshackle cottage along the Bohemia River. It has been in the family forever. I often meet my husband there after work with a minivan full of kids and a cooler packed with a picnic dinner and a few beers. There is a community beach with a diving platform, casting nets and fishing rods, scafolding that (thankfully!) no one has broken thier neck on yet. Sun faded towels on the drying rack in the tiny living room. A spiral staircase leading to a dark, dusty attic with no air conditioning that my husband likes to brag about he sleeping in as a kid. Rusty bikes that need WD-40 and air before they’re rideable. And when Uncle Kenny is around, the fire pit that burns all day and all night. A bench overlooks the river with the most beautiful sunsets, and (my kid's favorite amenity) a golf cart.

This is not the picture-perfect place most people imagine for family photos. (Uncle Ken is a bachelor who decorates with bottles of rum and power tools.) But it’s where we make many of our summer memories, and I want my kids to have a record of the fun and shenanigans we get up to there. That’s why this summer, I asked a photographer to document us exactly as we are, in the place that feels most like us.

For other families, thier happy place might be a favorite park where your children love exploring-- the one that has the perfect short and sweet trail for a Sunday nature walk. It might be the library, a museum, or a creek where you wade every summer. It might be home.

In the session I’m sharing here, a family chose a parking garage in their hometown. Most days it stands empty, and the top floor has a sweeping view of the town. It’s walkable from their house. Sometimes they go for the novelty of an elevator ride. Sometimes they bring pizza for a sunset picnic. Sometimes their two young sons ride balance bikes in circles.

There are no rules when it comes to choosing a location that suits your family, but I would gently encourage you to think beyond the random field or picture-perfect studio backdrop. The places you return to, the spaces that hold memory and meaning, are worth documenting.

Ready to document your family in a place that actually matters to you?

Inquire here to book a Happy Place Session.