Independence Day, also referred to as the Fourth of July or July Fourth, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence 241years ago on July 4, 1776. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies regarded themselves as a new nation, the United States of America, and were no longer part of the British Empire.
Independence Day is commonly associated with fireworks, parades, barbecues, carnivals, fairs, picnics, concerts, baseball games, family reunions, and political speeches… or in my case a styled patriotic shoot. And holy cow am I obsessed with these images of Sophie! The sun could not have been more perfect.
We started out at Nicholas Park. For those of you who haven’t been there- the parking lot for this park is a huge dirt lot. So we were parked and had Sophie’s doors open and we were finalizing her outfit with shoes and accessories. As were talking a guy in an old red minivan pulls up and starts backing up RIGHT NEXT to us… I thought it was very rude and I didn’t move and he legit came within 1 foot of hitting me. We were just kind of watching him and he stuck his head out and in broken English rudely asked if he could park there… I stepped out of the way and he finished parking… Like really? There is a whole dirt lot and you had to park right smack dab next to us-oh well!
Anyway that was weird, but he was part of the little soccer game. We walked down to the tree area and it seemed to be very over grown; but still very pretty. We got some cute ones and went for an outfit change. I had to open my truck to get some more props out so I left some stuff down at the bottom of the park; we were the only ones there besides the soccer game. I left a shoebox, some props, and my reflector, no big deal right? So we hike back up to the car and on our way we pass another photographer… I wasn’t worried, usually photographers respect other photographers. We finished the outfit change and headed back down. The other photographer was standing with her clients in a little circle around my pile of stuff I left down there… what in the world? Ok then. As we got closer they kind of left and I grabbed my stuff. We ended up moving to the other side of the park because the sun moved so it worked out. We had to work quickly to get these shots because we met another photographer at Sutton Farms for the last hour of the shoot. And you guys… I would highly recommend shooting at Sutton Farms because their property is GORGEOUS! I reached out to Jenn on Facebook and I wasn’t sure if she was ready to start letting other photographers use her land as a venue yet, but I figured the worst she’d say is no… but she said YES! Yay! She was so sweet and welcomed us with open arms. We basically had free rein to her whole property, which was so beautiful, honestly her home is goals.
We started in front of her house and I had to sit up on my truck to get the angleI wanted. Next we went to the side of the house where there was the cutest little barn door! Ah! We grabbed Jenn’s bench from her front porch and took it with us. The results are to die for! After the barn door we headed into the field, where the lighting…. Was SO PERFECT! I could cry because it was so stunning. We continued to shoot and the goats in the other field were quite interested in what we had going on. We walked over to the gate and said hi.
Jen had said we could go in that field, so we thought some photos with the goats would be cute. We opened up the gate and tried to slide in… and guys, goats are really strong. They pushed through us and made their way into the other field… oops! I didn’t know if they were allowedin there so I had to quickly go get Jenn and her husband to help us. They were so great and came out and helped wrangle them, they were so laid back and just did whatever we needed from them.
We finished off the shoot with some sparklers and the goats were very interested in those! They were also interested in eating our outfits, trying to steal the empty boxes of sparklers, and basically trying to get in every photo… which I guess is what we wanted earlier. So careful what you ask for haha.
So very long story short, the shoot was amazing, and the resulting images: pure perfection! Thank you Sophia for being my beautiful model, and thank you Jenn for letting us come photograph at your Farm! I’m so happy with how this shoot played out and I think these photos are some of my best work yet. Take a look:
❤︎ Tara T