Family Photographer in Sacramento, CA

Sacramento is the City of Trees in earnest, with one of the densest urban canopies in the country, and that canopy is why family sessions hold together there in the late afternoon when open ground has long since gone harsh.

The American River Parkway runs for miles and is the reliable choice. The prettier ones are McKinley Park, the rose garden at its centre, and the Victorian streets of East Sacramento and Land Park where the trees close over the road completely. Old Sacramento's boardwalks work early in the day, before the crowds arrive.

Sacramento is about forty minutes north of the studio. Families here tend to photograph outdoors in April or October, when the canopy is at its best, and come to the studio through the winter — which is a sensible rhythm and one that gives two very different sets of pictures.

For families with children of very different ages — a teenager and a toddler in the same frame — Sacramento's variety is the useful thing. Land Park has the ponds and the old oaks and something for a small child to look at; the Capitol grounds are planted as an arboretum with trees from all over the world; the Midtown alleys give brick and murals for an older child who has firm opinions about not standing in a meadow. Covering two of those in one session is straightforward, and it is often the difference between one child cooperating and all of them.