I often get asked by clients when we are planning their winter engagement session, how much snow is too much? And the answer is that there isn’t a limit. Jolani + Josh’s session is a great example as Mother Nature can be even weirder than usual when it comes to winter forecasts.
As we met and chatted in the parking lot of Jack Pine Trail, Jolani + Josh were concerned that there was too much snow falling and I wouldn’t be able to shoot. It actually really reminded me of Kirsten + Kyle‘s session just a few days earlier as the snow was so intense that my camera was going to have a hard time focusing unless I swapped to manual focus. But as we walked through the woods, heading to our first location, the snow started to let up and then during the rest of the shoot it swapped between being super bright and sunny and being super windy, which brought with it tons of snow!
All this to say that, it doesn’t matter what you think the weather is going to be during your session, in winter, your best bet is just to roll with it. Worst case, we can’t finish things and we book another shorter session later on to add to the photos we did capture. But luckily, that wasn’t the case for their session and I am so happy we just kept going as things turned out so beautifully!
I loved getting to hike through one of my favourite NCC Greenbelt trails with these two and getting a chance to get to know them and learn more about their wedding day. (which I am super excited for by the way) They also got to see just how far I will go to get the shot I want as I ended up tromping through (well technically over) a frozen marsh to get the perfect cattail for the ring shot I really wanted – I do love my ring shots after all!
It was also here that we learned that Jolani isn’t really a fan of birds, or at least not a fan of birds sitting on her hands. So we had to do a couple modifications to be able to get them some photos feeding that super cute (and hungry) chickadees.
The weather changed again as we drove over to Watson’s Mill. The drive there was pretty treachorous and at times I felt like Blinkin (from Men in Tights) when he was on guard duty, ‘I guess no one’s coming’, as the snow blowing across the road was just so thick there was practically no visibility at all! But we made it and Jolani + Josh pushed through the super cold winds to get a few more shots. We then proceeded to reward ourselves with some warm, yummy, Starbucks, because why not?!
