When Narges contacted me to help plan a snowy photoshoot at Tamarack Resort I jumped at the idea! Anything creative and out of the box is totally up my alley.
How to pick a specific location
Typically I have photographed a session at a location or at least have been there before the session date. This snowy photoshoot at tamarack resort was a little out of the norm because it was 3 hours away and I wasn’t going to be able to scout it before the day of the photoshoot. Luckily I have a lot of experience scouting locations for travel sessions so I was confident I could figure it out. The first step is trusty google. I use google maps to scout spots first and use the photos people have uploaded. If something looks promising I will then search for it on Instagram. Either using the location features or the tagged photos of the location. I was really surprised to not see hardly any photos at Tamarack Resort online. Narges liked the idea of using the village area for the photos and there were photos of that online.
Logistics
One non negotiable for planning a photoshoot especially in the snow is getting to the location early. I homeschool my kids and we had no plans that day so I had planned to take them along to play in the snow. Often times I will stay the night with them for travel locations but it just didn’t work out this time. The morning of the photshoot we woke up to several inches of snow at home! This is unusual and made me a little apprehensive for the drive. I’m so glad I have a good car for the snow and experience driving in it. There was BLOWING snow the entire drive up to the mountains. I was also scouting alternate spots for more scenic locations, but the wind and storm was making all other spots a complete white out. The buildings at Tamarack Resort made the perfect location for this specific session.
Backdrop
One thing to consider for locations is obviously the backdrop. If this was at Sun Valley or even in town at McCall there is a very good chance there would have been too many people in the backdrop. This particular day was a weekday which helped and Tamarack is generally less crowded.
If you’re looking for more tips for planning adventure sessions you can find that here!
