I don’t typically blog my family sessions anymore since I’m moving more into wedding and engagement photography these days. But when you work with such an awesome (and large) family like the Tiltons, you just can’t help yourself.
We basically had 4 time slots set aside over the weekend to make sure we could get the very best weather. They were traveling from Florida and with plans set months ago, there was no way to know then what the best time would be. Following all the weather apps it appeared that the morning sunrise would be perfect so we set our alarms and showed up to Roan Mountain expecting brilliant reds and pinks…we were met instead with heavy fog. These mountains may be beautiful but they are quite fickle with a mind of their own. Since there was nothing we could do about it, we decided to just go for it! We hiked with all 4 great grandparents up to the meadow and approximately 60 seconds later were met with the largest rain drops any of us had ever experienced! Giant monster drops started falling, first slowly, then too fast to escape! Fortunately everyone kept their spirits high and we just laughed it off for a few shots then took cover under the restroom shelter while we waited for it to pass.
With everyone thoroughly drenched, we knew these photos would tell a great story one day and not one person complained about wet clothes or frizzy hair. We hit every shot on the list then decided to descend the mountain for a bit to see if the weather was any better and sure enough the sun came out from behind the cloud and the beautiful Blue Ridge came into view! Soooo we started the shoot all over and got every shot even better the second time.
You just never know what you’re going to get when you hike a mountain but you can guarantee it will always be an adventure. Grateful these guys were down for the ride!