I was fortunate to hang out with the Vermillion family at their vacation rental on Whitefish Lake this spring. Funnily enough, it was the second time I've done a portrait session at this very rental which was fun. I even got the bonus of hanging out with them afterward when the road leaving the area was blocked.
The Owens family were visiting from Canada. And while they'd visited Whitefish before, this was the first time they'd all been able to get together in several years. I enjoyed joining them at their vacation rental in the Beaver Bay area of Whitefish Lake and we set out getting individual families photographed, along with individual photos of the children, followed by big groups, and even popping some champagne.
As with the majority of my extended family portrait sessions, the Cheneys were using their visit to Montana to get together as one big family spending time together and exploring the beautiful Flathead Valley and Glacier National Park regions. They were renting a vacation rental right on the Flathead River heading into Bigfork. I joined them there in the morning as the adults wrapped up their morning coffees and as the kids needed to get some energy out.
Sara contacted me about some extended-family family portraits while they were all spending some time here in Whitefish at The Lodge at Whitefish Lake. However, her request was a little out of the ordinary in that she insisted they wouldn't need my normal two-hour coverage time because they were all seasoned picture takers because after all, she is a photographer herself! I'll admit I was a little skeptical about really being able to get all the photos I like to get of such a large group in an abbreviated amount of time, but they nailed it, and were in fact all absolute pros at getting their pictures taken.
If I'm ever feeling bummed about the status of my bookings, I can thankfully count on at least one thing a couple of times of year to bring me right out of it. And that is Maggie messaging me for some updated family portraits. I've now photographed them every season and a half-dozen times over the last 2.5 years. Love seeing their family grow and change.
This was such a great evening spent with the Schram family at Walking Bear Resort on the South end of Whitefish. It's said so often by photographers here in the Flathead Valley that one of our favorite parts of our jobs is meeting people from all over the place that come together here in Northwest Montana, but it's really true! It's also fun to witness families with multiple generations spending time together, something that culturally in the United States anyway seems to be more normal than it is now with people living more spread out than they may have historically.
For some reason, I'd not had the opportunity to make it over to Glacier Park Lodge in East Glacier but I'm so glad I got the opportunity to document the Lewis family's vacation stop there. Yes, it was sort of a miserable day, with gray clouds and reasonably persistent rain, but they were very open to working around that and didn't let it spoil the fun—and plenty of shenanigans from the teenagers and the grandads—of the evening.
