by Utah Wedding Photographers James Erick Photography Utah
The Fall Antelope Island Bride and Groom Session with Josie & Jeff was beautiful, but when shooting at Antelope island, you are always in a rush to get to a lot of locations and then get to the beach just before sunset.
I have been shooting sessions at Antelope island for a while now, so I know where every great place to take pictures is located on the island, how long it takes to get there, and how long to spend at each location. I could probably drive the island with my eyes closed (if I wasn't afraid of running into a Bison). So, the only limitations I ever run into here is how fast the bride and groom can move from location to location.
With that said, I don't like to rush the bride and groom, but I also want them to get a lot of variety as in backgrounds. To do this I always shoot longer here than in any other location. I usually do a t.5 to 2 hour session here just to make sure that I get all the best locations, and to the beach onetime.
The other issue when shooting here is that things change from season to season. Sometime the cattails are a beautiful golden color, sometimes they are dead looking, and other times someone in island management has mowed them down. Sometimes there are bugs, lots of them, and sometimes none at all. One month of the year there are millions of 2 inch long spiders with webs all over the place, and the arrival of the spiders varies from year to year. Twice there were so many flying nates that I had to cancel and reschedule the shoot at another location. Also the sun sets at different times and in slightly different locations depending on the time of year.
Then there is the weather. Sometimes it is really windy, sometimes so calm the water looks like glass. Sometimes it is socked in cloudy, making the island kind of dull, and sometimes its partially cloudy, making for amazing sunsets. Sometimes it's not cloudy at all and the sun just sinks into the water on the horizon and there is hardly a sunset at all. Sometimes it's warm, in the 90's, other times it's below 30 degrees. And a few times it has gone from 75 degrees to 45 degrees within a few minutes. That's not a joke.
And if all of that is not enough, there are the animals. Bison are beautiful to look at from a distance, and the Bison on the island are tamer than in the wild, but they are no fun to mess with. They can run 35 miles per hour when provoked, and I can't. I once surprised one that was canceled in some bushes about 10 feet away from me and had to run for my life. Luck for me I was able to climb on a rock that the bison could not reach. I had to wait about twenty minutes for it to loose interest in me and go away.
But even if none of these things happen, and the weather is perfect, and there are no bugs, one of the biggest problems I have with clients that schedule their sessions with me at Antelope Island is that 50% of the time, they arrive late. Even though I always give them a pin to our meeting location, it does not seem to help. And it is not my time I'm worried about...its the sun. The sun sets at a specific time, then it gets dark really quick, and the shoot is then over.
To do a shoot at antelope island, you must be a master planner, know every square inch of the island, plan ahead for weather, and much more.
I'm very happy to say, that none of these issues happened at this shoot. I did have to rush the bride for the final location on the sand dunes because the light was failing and the sky was so beautiful, pinkish purple, that I wanted to get them some amazing shots.
The pictures above are just a very few of my favorites from the The Fall Antelope Island Bride and Groom Session with Josie & Jeff. Enjoy!
For more information on The Fall Antelope Island Bride and Groom Session with Josie & Jeff shoot location, please visit the Antelope Island website, or for the exact GPS coordinates and pictures of hundreds of amazing shoot locations in Utah, please visit my Utah Photography Locations web page.
For more information about James Erick Photography Utah, please visit my website at JamesErickPhotographyUtah.com.