Peddler’s Village Family Portrait • Lahaska, PA • Whitfield Family

Peddler’s Village Family Portrait Session

I adore shooting in Peddler’s Village in Lahaska, PA, especially for a family portrait session. The area is always so nicely decorated and there are so many different places to shoot within their grounds. The Whitfield Family contacted me for their annual photo session and we immediately decided upon a Peddler’s Village Family Portrait Session. Since it was fall the leaves were the perfect color and the weather was just right for beautiful fall clothing. Their son, Benjamin, had a wonderful time running around Peddler’s Village while his mother and father chased him about. I’ve photographed Benjamin quite a few times and boy oh boy does this kid LOVE to run! I think he may be a track star in high school haha.

Looking for a Peddler’s Village Family Portrait Session? I’ve shot here and at dozens of other locations in the area. Please feel free to email me any time at info@ryansandsphotography.com. I will be more than happy to answer any of your questions. For your convenience my full pricing is available here on my blog and on my website. I look forward to hearing from you!

I tend to photograph my subjects later in the day because I love the late afternoon sun. It’s golden in color, very direct and creates the most beautiful hair light. For this image, all I had to do was place my subjects in front of a beautiful fall tree and ask them to hold their son Benjamin.

With a family portrait session it is always wise to give your subjects something fun to do together, instead of just asking them to sit and pose for you. Children almost never want to sit in one location for very long so I simply asked The Whitfield family to walk through Peddler’s Village while I snapped away. Having a long lens such as the Canon 70-200 gives you the ability to be quite far away from your subjects, letting them interact naturally. This also gives you ample time to get several good photographs before the family reaches your location.

Kimberly has the most wonderful smile and you can tell her son Benjamin is the light of her life. Here they are in front of a local toy store. I frequently like to use the surrounding architecture and foliage to my advantage. So by asking them to kneel and relax together I was able to give this shot some bursts of color.

Since there was so many colorful flags and decorations around Peddler’s Village it was easy to capture the tone of this beautiful fall afternoon. When photographing fast moving children you have to be sure to use a very fast shutter speed, in order to stop any motion. If you don’t your photographs will come out very blurry and you will have unhappy clients.

Benjamin is such a polite boy. He always waved to other children and said hello as we adventured through Peddler’s Village.

You only have one shot to get that perfect photo of a child looking directly into your lens. When photographing a family I always make sure to tell my parents and adults to always look at me the entire time they are posing with their child. I’ve figured out through experience that the child will only look up for a split second and I have to catch that shot. If I have my parents looking down at their child, trying to get them to look at me, the moment he looks up, I have parents looking down. This little tip has helped me countless times to capture a perfect family portrait.