October 2012 – hanalani photography

I’ve spent the past two weeks away from sunny Charleston “chasing Fall”, (i.e. finding a place that actually has an autumn where leaves turn vibrant colors, crisp, and then swirl to the ground in a rain of color that transforms the ordinary into the enchanted), first in Indiana and then in the mountains along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Needless to say, I found my crisp, color leaves in abundance and my heart was happy. It had been four years since I had seen a Fall.

While I was in Indiana, amidst the excitement of helping my sister plan a wedding, I did a few portrait sessions and was so excited about them (despite the chill in the air) because… they could actually look like Fall portraits!! Ever since the end of September I have been struggling to come up with a way to create legitimate fall portrait sessions — with pumpkins and piles of crunchy leaves and half-buried children and rosy cheeks. We have pumpkins but we don’t have leaves… I’ve thought of hauling some in from an area that excels at the “Fall” thing and has an over-abundance, but it wouldn’t really look natural to have a pile of crisp color leaves underneath a palm tree. Also, if I asked kids to wear a scarf and other apparel that is representative of the season, they are likely to be keeling over from the heat. What a quandary.

But it was solved! I didn’t have to bring a carload of dried leaves back home with me and try to make them look like they’d fallen from a Palmetto. I got my Fall portrait fix and now can happily take beach portraits for the rest of the year. So, thank you to everyone that was a part of my Indiana sessions! It was such fun to work with you in such a wonderful setting.

I have to add in a photo from my time in the mountains…too much beauty to ever be fully captured, but this is what I was able to bring away.

Oh, and also… no amount of swirling, crisp, color leaves would be enough to tempt me away from my balmy beach climate. I just have to leave every once-in-a-while to chase Fall 🙂