Child Life Portraits in Gilbert Arizona: A Trip to the Pumpkin Patch from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

A trip to the pumpkin patch with the kids is a perfect way to spend the afternoon and it yields some great opportunities for children’s lifestyle portraits.

Photography by Platt Photography
Music by Roy Ashen “What Can I Say” Courtesy of Triple Scoop Music.

MY FAVORITE SHOTS FROM THE AFTERNOON

This was a trip that we took with our good friends, the Seelys, to the Pumpkin Patch at Mother Nature’s Farm in Gilbert, Arizona.  It is a great place for photos in the fall and yet right in the city.  We started off grabbing a few portraits of the kids and then played the rest of the evening.

Child Portrait on a Tractor in Chandler Arizona

Child Portrait in Chandler Arizona

Child Portrait in Chandler Arizona

Child portrait in Chandler Arizona

This is a cool bunch of kids.  I have never met a better bunch of kids.

Group of siblings in front of a small barn: a children's portrait in Chandler, Arizona

Children looking at a small baby chicken, Chandler Arizona

Mother and baby daughter

Baby girl, childrens portrait on hay bails in Chandler Arizona

Young boy in hay bail maze in Chandler, Arizona

Let me just say a quick word about the last photo here.  It is increasingly clear to me that the only photography that really matters is that which expresses the deepest meanings which can not be expressed completely in words, because they are simply feelings.  While they can also be found in landscapes, or in images heavily steeped in pictorialism or surrealism, etc, Generally, I find these kinds of images in “moments” between two people.  But this is why, while I do take portraits, I shy away from posed photographs in favor of the “moments.”  It isn’t because I want to be a reporter, a photojournalist, as many wedding photographers pretend to aspire, but it is because I recognize that it is in moments, that I have a greater chance at discovering an expression of real worth.  One that can conjure up the emotions that I feel, or that my subjects felt for each other, and that in the end, that I feel for my subjects.

I don’t think I need to say much about the images below for you to understand its meaning.  But I will say this: that the photograph, while saying so much about these two sweet little brothers, says even more about my hopes and fears for them as they set out on their path through life.  I hope that when I photograph them in 10, 15 and 20 years from now, the same will be true of them then.

Brothers walking down dirt road in Chandler, Arizona. Child Portrait.