Winnemac Park Family Session | Chicago Family Photographer

I was standing in the middle of Winnemac Park with my phone to my ear, watching the sky. It was raining. Not hard. The kind of rain that could stop in five minutes or settle in for the afternoon. On the other end of the line, the client was watching the same sky from her car, and we were both saying some version of the same thing. Should we call it?

We didn't. We gave it ten more minutes and started taking photos.

You cannot tell it rained. Not in a single frame. That is the beauty of good photography. The weather is almost never the problem people think it is.

Why Winnemac Park works

Overcast is the best light for family photos, and I will say that to anyone who asks. No squinting. No harsh shadows across a four-year-old's face. No chasing a patch of shade so a toddler stops crying. A gray sky is one giant softbox, and it hands me the entire park to work with instead of one good corner. When clients text me the morning of a session worried about clouds, I tell them we just got lucky.

Winnemac Park holds up in that light. The open field on the north side gives you room to run, and the tree line behind it reads as woods rather than city, which is a rare thing this far inside Chicago. April through September is the green season here. Full, deep, and at its best in June and July when the field fills in and the tree line closes up behind you. October and November are the other option, and that is when the color arrives without anyone having to ask for it. Gold, rust, and a lot of it underfoot. Both seasons are worth booking. They just give you two different photos.

One logistics note. There is no parking lot. Parking is street parking on the residential blocks around the park, so build in ten extra minutes and plan to walk in with your things.

The blanket

We were most of the way through the session when I pulled out a blanket. I use it for sitting shots, mostly, a place to put everyone that isn't wet grass.

Dad got to it first. He is a natural in front of a camera, which is not something I get to say often, and he started having fun with his daughter, pulling the blanket up and letting it fall. She lost it laughing. Then everyone else ran in.

That was the session. Not the posed frames at the beginning, which are lovely and which they will absolutely print. The blanket. Four people tangled up in it, in the rain, laughing at something none of them could explain afterward.

That is the whole reason I do this. As a Chicago and North Suburbs family photographer, my job is mostly to be standing in the right place when a family forgets I am there.

Someday is today. Fall dates are open.