While Hannah and I are typically out in the middle of a field during family and engagement sessions, we’ve also come to love shooting at downtown locations, especially around the light-colored columned buildings around the city. However, planning for these types of sessions is a bit different than planning countryside sessions because cities are more populated and often involve walking to multiple locations. Below are some of the ways we prepare our clients for this type of session.

Plan Parking Ahead of Time.

I’m sure parking can be difficult in many cities, but lately it has been especially hard in Nashville. Once you’ve figured out the exact location you want to shoot, plan the exact parking lot or garage where you want your clients to meet you, and let them know in advance. We typically know where we’re going to be going in advance so we send them the general area where we will be parking a week or so in advance. Then, we get to the location 30 minutes to an hour ahead of time and drop a pin to our clients so they know exactly where we are parked. If you want to serve your clients well, we also suggest paying for their parking. Nashville parking can be really expensive, and unless the client has picked a particularly expensive location, we believe it’s a good idea to cover the parking fee.

Traveling to Multiple Places Throughout the City

Depending on the length of a session, we may choose to stay in one location or travel around to a few spots throughout the city. If the second location is close by, we remind our clients to bring comfortable walking shoes to put on during the walk and then change back into their fancier shoes once they are in front of the camera again. We put that tip in the Style Guide that we provide our clients as soon as they pay their retainer for their session so they can plan their outfits in advance.

If the next location is too far to walk, many times, we ask the clients to just ride with us. We do this for a few reasons: one, it allows us a chance to talk more and build a relationship with them, which we believe is very important, and two, it’s a time saver. When you’re driving around a city, you never know what kind of traffic there’s going to be and trying to follow each other can be stressful. The objective is to get to the next location as fast as possible because you don’t want to waste any of the good light! And three, it keeps you from having to pay for parking for 2 cars again.

Prepare Your Client For Outside Eyes

Being behind a professional camera is intimidating enough for most people so you can imagine that posing in front of a crowd of tourists doesn’t make that much easier. At the very beginning of the session, we have a quick chat with the clients letting them know it’s ok to feel nervous, but we will be instructing them the entire time on what to do. Reassure their feelings and them give them an affirmation. Like, “Guys, I know standing in the middle of all of these tourists is super awkward, but that was the best giggle kiss I’ve ever seen! Y’all are doing so great!”

Shooting in the city can be challenging but also super rewarding when you come out with images that really add variety to your portfolio!

Wondering how to make it look like your clients have the whole city to themselves? Stay tuned to next weeks post.

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-Chelsea and Hannah