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Now that I’ve been able to photograph a few sessions (mostly my own kids and the awesome family above that won my Indiana Giveaway) since we moved to Indiana a few months ago, I thought it would be fun to highlight a few of the things I’ve noticed that are pretty different from AZ.
1. The Weather
One of the biggest things I have heard when people ask me where I’ve moved from is something to do with the weather. It goes something like this.
Them: Where did you move from?
Me: Arizona.
Them: Oh, you picked the right time of year to move, didn’t you?
Me: Yes, we sure did!! We just missed the big heat! It’s in the 100’s now (up to 120’s this year!!).
Them: That is so hot! But it’s probably still nothing compared to the humidity we get here!
Here’s the deal, people. I’d say it’s like comparing apples to oranges, but I actually think it’s more like apples to….pears. Humid weather and dry heat are very different and both are hot. But while Indiana is super hot and sticky, you still get relief from time to time. I guess that’s the key for me…I still find relief in it. You can still actually be outside. In Arizona, it’s just. plain. hot. Like, so hot that my friends were frying eggs on sidewalks this year. Literally. The breezes that you get can’t even be called a breeze. To me, a breeze means wind that will come and cool you off a little bit. When wind hits you there, it feels like you opened the oven and you got blasted in the face with pure heat. No relief there.
With that to say, I’m just excited that I can shoot sessions in the summer! Although, I would probably stand back a little bit…I sweat like a crazy athlete (which I’m not) when I’m shooting. You’d think I just ran a marathon or something, but all I’m doing is clicking the camera and moving about to find the shot. All in all, in the summer, I choose Indiana. The winter?? That’s probably obvious, although I get super excited thinking about some snow shoots!! Who’s in?
2. Bugs
Haha, I totally forgot what bugs were like in the mid-west. Although I spent the majority of my childhood growing up all over the midwest (my dad is a Pastor, so we moved a LOT there for awhile), I completely forgot about the bugs. I spent most of the time in Arizona thinking about and avoiding things like snakes and scorpions, although, luckily, I never saw much of either (I lived in the middle of the city for most of the time). Here is a different ballgame with less poisonous, but more pesky creatures like spiders and mosquitos. Oh, and there’s snakes here too. And about 35 million other creepy bugs.
Have I mentioned how much I don’t like bugs??
On this last shoot (above), I got reacquainted with the mosquito. I think this is the absolute worst contender for me. Oh, Arizona had them too, but Indiana’s mosquito scale is just muuuuuch larger due to all the moisture here. I got eaten alive, people. It was just awful. And because I love all of those natural areas mentioned above, I’m bound to come into contact with even more.
So you can imagine the brand new item that I’ve added to my camera bag this summer: bug spray!!
3. Photo spots
Captain Obvious on this one, right? Ever since we moved to Indiana a few months ago, I’ve been dying to get my hands on some clients and explore a different kind of landscape than I’ve been used to. A few of my photographer friends and I would literally spend hours hunting down and looking for little patches of land that had any sort of plant life that wasn’t a cactus. Don’t get me wrong, I did love shooting in the desert too (it took a while, but I actually got there), but I really found that I loved overgrown grassy areas, wooded places and anything really natural looking that doesn’t looked manicured and kept up. You wouldn’t think it’s be all that hard to find, but it actually was. And once the word was out, photographers always flocked (which I’m okay with), but it always made it a little harder to gain access to some really lovely places.
So hello green!! I seriously had so much fun spending our first several weeks hopping in the car with my kiddos and driving all over eternity finding spot after spot. What’s fun is that everyone I talk to about it always gives me more places that I should go check out.. amazing!! While I realize that it won’t stay green forever, I am excited that Fall is around the corner and that opens up so many different looks!
4. Light
If you know anything about photography, you know that much of a great photo has to do with light and knowing how to handle your camera in good light. Those two elements alone should leave you with an incredible photo.
Something that I hadn’t even considered when I moved at the beginning of the summer was how different the light would be. Things like Day Light Savings Time and horizon times (think tall forests compared to the desert which stretched miles) played pretty big roles that I hadn’t even thought of. My hands-down favorite two times to shoot have always been 1.5 hours before sunset and about a half an hour after sunrise, the best light in my opinion. This has always worked out great for just about any shoot, but when I realized that sunset in June in Indiana was almost two hours later than the sunset in AZ, I freaked out a little bit. My mind immediately went to shooting families with little kids and thinking about the magical melt-down hours in the evening that most kiddos seem to go through at one point or another. When I was faced with my new sunset time of almost 9:20 when I arrived, I could not even imagine asking families to stay out that late to do photos. My own kids go to bed at 7:30!
Although this isn’t the case year around, I’m still considering my dilemma and I don’t think it will be as clean cut with every family. There’s a few factors that might help out and I can still get fabulous light a whole lot earlier, like shooting in the middle of all those tall trees giving me more open shade to work with and nice light peeking through.
I also ran into the flip-side of my light issue with my location last week (don’t worry, we still got fabulous photos). I had awesome plans of shooting in the woods with my clients and I lost light muuuch faster than I was used to. I am used to thinking about things like changing my times with the mountains in AZ, but the woods were just a different breed as I had nothing that the light bounced off of at all around me (I use a lot of natural reflectors in low light situations like pavement, sand, light colored buildings or even clothes — totally different convo, so I won’t bore you with anymore of those details).
5. Poisonous Plants
Ruh roh. With all of those magical dreams of photographs captured in the great, wild and untamed nature, I completely forgot about it’s less than friendly inhabitants. You know, like poison ivy and poison oak to name a couple. There have been several spots that I drool over that I then learn are covered in some sort of plant life that will make you break out in a rash if you’re not careful.
After I got home, I was determined to get re-aquainted with everything that I need to be on the look out for and found a few handy guides (like this) to help me study up. I remember growing up roaming all kinds of land (Missouri, Illinois, Ohio to name a few) and having to watch out for poison ivy for my brother. Unfortunately for him, he could be 6 feet from the stuff and all he would have to do was breath it and he’d break out.
Yikes. I really don’t want to be the guy responsible for my clients being covered in calamine lotion for days on end.
I love, love, love this new adventure that my little family is on! It’s taken me from my comfortable place, both in photography and in life, and has stretched me to grow even more, which I consider a very, very good thing! I’m sure I’ll be back to fill you in on all things different and new as the year goes on!
