Family Portraits

Fall family photos in Kentucky have a beauty all their own. For a few short weeks, the landscape completely transforms. Green gives way to gold, amber and deep orange. Fallen leaves cover the forest floor, and places that are beautiful throughout the year suddenly look entirely different.

For this family, that change of scenery made the experience even more exciting.

We first photographed them years ago when our studio was still in Las Vegas. Mom originally called us because she was graduating with her doctorate and wanted photographs to mark such an important time in their lives.

Back then, they were a family of three. Their daughter was still little, their careers were growing, and they were building the life they had spent years working toward. What began as a way to celebrate an accomplishment became a chance to preserve their family exactly as it was during that chapter.

A lot has changed since then.

Their family of three became four. Their oldest daughter has grown, they welcomed another little girl, and the life Mom and Dad were working so hard to build has continued growing right along with them.

Our lives had changed too. By the time they were ready for family photographs again, our studio was no longer in Las Vegas.

That didn’t change who Mom wanted to photograph them.

She had loved the photographs Ella created for their family the first time and loved the experience of working with her. Since we had moved to Kentucky and traveling was already going to be part of the plan, she was open to meeting us just about anywhere in the country. The destination could be figured out. What mattered most to her was having Ella photograph her family again.

There were so many beautiful places we could have considered. She had asked if we would be willing to travel too, and we’re always up for an adventure. As we talked about what she was envisioning, she wanted something completely different from the desert landscape of their first session. With fall approaching, she loved the idea of incredible autumn color somewhere like Vermont, the Blue Ridge Mountains or the Smoky Mountains.

And we just knew we had to show her Kentucky.

After living here and seeing for ourselves just how breathtaking fall becomes when the leaves begin to change, we sent her examples of the brilliant yellows, deep oranges and warm autumn colors that fill the landscape here.

She absolutely loved it.

From there, we chose Bernheim Forest near Louisville for their fall family photos. With so much wooded landscape and so many different areas to explore, we could move from deeper stretches of forest to brilliant pockets of fall color and create completely different photographs without ever leaving the property.

From the Las Vegas Desert to Fall in Kentucky

Their original photographs belonged to the desert. There was something about how open everything was, how there was nothing to distract from their family and everything they had accomplished together. At that moment in their lives, it felt right. They were the foundation of everything they were working so hard to build.

And now, all these years later, their family had grown. There were four of them standing in front of Ella’s camera instead of three, and somehow being surrounded by towering trees, fallen leaves and all of this incredible Kentucky color felt right too. Their lives had become so much fuller since we first met them. Another daughter to love, years of memories they hadn’t made yet in those first photographs, and so much of what they had once been working toward now becoming the life they actually got to live. Because really, this was what they had been working toward all along. A family with lives full of love and the time to actually enjoy it together.

This time, that was what we wanted the photographs to feel like. Full of everything they had built, but even more importantly, full of the people they had built it for.

Bernheim gave us exactly the variety we had hoped for.

One part of the forest could be filled with deeper greens, rust and brown, while somewhere else a single enormous tree had turned completely golden. Even within the same session, we could create wide photographs that showed their family surrounded by the landscape and then move closer, letting those autumn colors frame them instead.

That’s part of what makes fall family photos so beautiful. The season gives us an incredible environment to work with, but the photographs don’t all have to feel the same.

And for a family whose first experience with us had been surrounded by the Las Vegas desert, getting to create something this different years later made the change between the two chapters even more visible.

Getting to See What Came Next

There is something incredibly special about photographing a family again years later. We get to see what came next.

The little girl Ella photographed all those years ago was older now, and this time she had a little sister beside her.

Mom and Dad had spent those years growing too. The goals they were working toward when we first met weren’t simply plans anymore. They had continued building successful careers and practices, creating something that could eventually give them more freedom over one of the things that mattered most to them: their time.

So much of what they had worked toward was about creating a life where success didn’t have to mean being consumed by work. They could build something strong enough to grow while giving themselves more freedom to actually be there for their girls, to take the trips, have the ordinary days together and be present for the childhoods that move much faster than anyone expects them to.

That made seeing them again feel particularly meaningful. Their first photographs remind them of a time when they were still building so much of what they wanted for their future.

These photographs get to show them living in some of it.

Sometimes the Reason for All the Work Is Standing Right in Front of You

When these portraits eventually live on the walls of their home, they won’t only remind them of how little the girls once were or how beautiful Kentucky looked that fall.

They’ll see their reason.

Their daughters happy, growing up together with parents who worked hard to give them a life they could actually be present for.

They’ll see the spark between Mom and Dad that never left, even through all the years of building careers, raising a family and creating this life together.

And they’ll see what all of that work made room for.

A life they actually get to enjoy with the people they love most.

If you’ve been thinking about creating something meaningful for your own family, you can learn more about our Kentucky family photography or reach out to start planning your own session.

Why We Love Fall Family Photos in Kentucky

There is a reason fall is such a beautiful season for family photography in Kentucky.

At Bernheim Forest, we could photograph this family surrounded by darker woods and earthy autumn tones, then walk a little farther and find ourselves beneath a canopy of brilliant yellow leaves. There is so much variety, and every little part of the forest seemed to give us something different.

The only difficult thing about fall is just how quickly all of that beauty comes and goes.

Kentucky’s most vibrant fall color happens within a relatively small window, and every year is a little different. Once those leaves begin to turn, we only have so much time before they’re gone. It naturally means we can only take on a limited number of fall family sessions while the color is at its best.

But maybe that small window is part of what makes these sessions feel so spectacular.

For a few weeks, Kentucky gives us towering trees filled with gold and orange, leaves scattered across the ground and those incredible pockets of color that seem to glow when the light hits them. Then, almost as quickly as it arrived, it’s gone.

Every family we photograph brings a completely different story into that small window.

For this family, it happened to be a story we already knew the beginning of. Years ago, we photographed them in the openness of the Las Vegas desert while they were building so much of the life they wanted. This time, their story brought them here, surrounded by everything fall in Kentucky had to give us, with another little girl beside them and so much more life filling the frame.

That’s what we love about these sessions. Fall gives us such a limited amount of time to create them, and somehow that makes it even more special when a family’s story gets to exist within it.

For this one beautiful little window, this was theirs.