"He'll Knock Me Down!": A Fall Family Session at the Everett Road Covered Bridge

"He'll knock me down!"

That was the prediction, delivered insistently by one of the kids about halfway through this session at the Everett Road covered bridge in Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Mom wanted her up on a low bench with the family dog for a photo. We thought it would be fine.

It was fine, for about four seconds.

The Bridge Was Doing Its Job

We picked Everett Road for this one on purpose. It's one of my favorite fall spots in the Cuyahoga Valley, tucked near Peninsula and Boston Mills, and if you've never made the drive out from Kent or Akron to see it, mid to late October is the time to go. The bridge itself is doing a lot of the work with its red walls and white crisscrossed trusses, but it's the trees surrounding it that seal the deal, every shade of gold and rust lit up at once. This family showed up in olive green, denim, and cream, colors that could not have worked better with the leaves if we'd chosen it out of a magazine, which we hadn't. Even the dog matched, plaid bandana and all. This isn't a quiet, calm couple of kids either. They run hot, in the best way, and by the time we made it out to the other side of the bridge for the last set of shots everyone was pink cheeked and a little sweaty despite the October air. That's usually how it goes with this family, and it's part of why I love photographing them.

Sometimes They Know Something We Don't

Up onto the bench she went anyway, because that's what happens when your mom asks nicely and you're outnumbered. The dog, who had been a genuine professional all session, spotted a squirrel or a smell or something only he understood, and pulled. Down she came, more startled than hurt, with a scraped knee and a few real tears.

Mom rushed over feeling terrible, which I understood completely because I felt a little terrible too. There was a minute of comforting and knee inspecting. And then, because kids recover faster than the moment ever suggests, we were back at it.

I remember those moments so vividly, not because she was right and we were wrong exactly, but because kids sometimes read a situation more accurately than the adults standing right next to them. If you've got one of those in your family, the one who calls it before it happens and gets overruled anyway, you already know the feeling.

What Actually Made the Gallery

The scraped knee didn't end up in a single frame (thank you photoshop). What did make it in was that golden light shining through the trees, the iconic bridge, a family in a wardrobe that read as effortless and intentional at once, a very good boy of a dog in his own little bandana, and a whole lot of genuine, sweaty, high spirited chaos that never once slowed down. We got the classic bridge shot, but my favorites are the daughter wrapped around the dog on an old bench with the leaves gone soft and blurry behind her, the son propped on a fence rail with the light turning the trees behind him almost amber, mom and dad leaning into each other in that same gold light like they'd forgotten anyone else was there. That's the version of this family I love capturing.

Here’s the part I keep coming back to with families like this, and honestly with most fall sessions around Cuyahoga Valley, Peninsula, and the rest of Northeast Ohio. The bridge and the leaves and the coordinated outfits provide the framework. What makes the photos worth having later is everything that happens once my shutter is clicking.

Fall books up fast around here, especially weekend dates at spots like the covered bridge, and I'm already filling in October. If a session like this one sounds like your family, chaos, sweat, opinionated kids and all, feel free to reach out and we'll find a date that works.