What If It's Bad Weather For Your Shoot?

So you wake up on the morning of your shoot and the forecast of “100% chance of rain” has come true. The clouds are thick and the rain is strong and steady all morning. You might be thinking, “Welp, I guess we’ll have to reschedule our photo shoot“, but you in many cases would be wrong. Let me tell you two reasons why I almost never call off a shoot before 2 or 3pm, even if it’s supposed to rain all day:

-I’ve lived in Utah almost two decades and it almost never rains ALL day. Even if the cloud cover is thick and settled, I’ve seen the clouds break in the early evening after the ugliest of days.

-I don’t trust the weather man. I watch the weather like a hawk for my job, and I’ve learned the forecasts change all the time. After years of checking the weather regularly, I’ve learned that the weather man is usually right, but ONLY about 2-3 hours in advance. Any sooner than that, I don’t trust them….at all. So a few hours before your scheduled time, I’ll check the hourly forecast and then we can make the call.

I never want to have clients start getting ready for a photography session that doesn’t happen, so we will call it as late as possible without stressing you out, but sooner than you would have to start getting ready. You’d never guess that the shoot below was the ugliest and rainiest day of Spring 2021. At 2 or 3pm it was still coming down. The hourly forecast showed the rain would stop, but just barely in time. Plus the clouds were really thick so I would need to move up the shoot to accommodate for the lack of light. I left the final call up to my client, and because scheduling was difficult in their busy schedules, they opted to go for it, and this is what we got.

And a few thoughts about the location, Thanksgiving Point is one of the most beautiful places to have your senior pictures taken. While most of Utah is still dead and brown, there’s green grass and blossoms galore at this spot in early April. The location fee is usually somewhere around $100 but it is well worth it for such variety and scenery all in one spot. We didn’t rent a cart and chose to walk to the bridge and take pictures on the way. When I saw this pink blossom tree with the sun shining through it, I knew we had to stop.

utah senior photographer