Autumn is, for me, the most significant season of change in the year. The trees and land change in colour producing rich reds, golds, yellows and browns. Autumn is perfect as it makes the most pleasing colour palette as a backdrop for family portrait photography. It also gives us the opportunity for people to wear lots of different type of clothes. Hats and scarves suddenly make sense as props which gives us plenty of variety when styling the photographs. I did this session in late October last year at Lymm Dam.

Lymm Dam is a very popular local beauty spot

The dam is a bit of tourist attraction in Lymm. Lymm is a traditional Cheshire village in the south east of the Borough of Warrington. But it isn’t an ideal location for family portraits all year round. From late May to Mid September the leaf cover is very dense making it dark on cloudy days. On sunny days it’s even worse as the strong sunlight filters through the big, green leaves and castes a green tint to people’s faces. In my opinion it makes people look a bit ill and is difficult to correct. The autumn colours work perfectly from Mid September to the end of November meaning that we have near perfect backdrops. As the leaves fall and form a carpet of golds, yellows and browns they soften the harsh greens of summer grass.

On sunny days the bright autumn light can be used to backlight subjects adding an amazing glow to the portraits. Just to balance things out I like to bring a lightweight and very portable off camera flash like a Profoto A1 or B2 to balance the daylight and soften the shadows.