Fall Family Photos in Orange County: When to Book, Where to Go & What to Wear
Field Notes · Orange County
It's 87 degrees. Happy fall.
A practical guide to fall photos in a place where October can still hit 87 degrees. Timing, locations, clothes, kids, and how to get the good stuff without asking anyone to “act natural.”
The calendar says October. Target has been selling pumpkins since roughly the Fourth of July. Everyone you know is booking fall photos. And it's 87 degrees, and every tree in the county is aggressively green. Welcome to fall in Orange County.
Fall here doesn't announce itself. No turn of color, no first frost. The sun just sits lower, the afternoons go gold earlier, and the coast empties out once summer lets go. It's the best light we get all year, and this is everything I'd tell you if we were planning your session together.
When
October for easy light and holiday cards. Late November into December for actual leaves.
Where
Somewhere your family already goes. If you don't have one, I pick for the light.
Wear
Warm colors, real texture, and a sweater for when the sun drops.
Kids
A happy kid who won't listen beats an obedient, miserable one. Every time.
I.
The Light
Fall gives little kids their golden hour back.
In June, golden hour lands around eight o'clock, which with small kids is basically a hostage negotiation. By mid-October it's closer to six. After the clocks fall back on November 1, it's before five. Snack time.
The number on your phone isn't the whole story, though. Trees, hills and canyons steal the light early. At the beach I can work right up to sunset. In Carbon Canyon's redwood grove the sun ducks behind the ridge a full hour before the official time. So I set your start time for your spot, not for the app.
One more thing I've noticed. The fall sun rides lower across the southern sky, and through our usual Southern California haze it often feels noticeably softer than summer light. At Yorba Regional Park there's a long line of trees along the south side, and I've found the low sun comes through them for a surprisingly big chunk of the day. Glowing hair, nobody squinting.
II.
The Calendar
Orange County gets two falls. Pick yours.
Fall one is the light. Fall two is the leaves. They don't show up together.
September
7ishsunset, give or takeSummer with better manners. Beaches at their best, and the kids will go in the water whether or not you asked.
October
6ishsunset, roughlyLittle-kid sunsets, holiday-card timing, and trees that are still very green.
the easy month
November
before 5sunset, suddenlyClocks fall back. Sweaters finally make sense. Color creeps into the parks, and so do the other photographers.
Late Nov to Dec
4:45sunset, aroundThe fall you pictured. Sycamores and sweetgums turn, and Yorba gets a carpet of leaves to kick through.
Most real color here shows up after everyone's already taken their fall photos, and it changes every year and every park. I wrote a slightly nerdy post on which trees turn and when: where to find fall color in Orange County.
III.
What to Wear
Dress for the light. Coordinate, don't clone.
Warm colors just work in this light. Rust, olive, mustard, camel, cream, deep blue. Give me some texture and we're pretty much there.
Texture helps too: knits, corduroy, linen, a good jacket. I usually steer families away from lots of true black or bright white. Softer creams and warmer dark tones tend to settle into this light better.
Coordinate, but don't clone yourselves. Five people in the same plaid shirt looks less like a family and more like the staff photo at a very seasonal lumberyard.
And bring a layer. It can be 87 at four o'clock and sweater weather by six, and a cardigan in someone's hand makes a better frame than a shivering seven-year-old. The rest is in my guide to what to wear for family photos, and booked families get my full styling guide too.
IV.
Where to Go
Start with where your family already goes.
The trail you hike most weekends. The park your kids demand to stop at. The stretch of sand you've been visiting since before they existed. Kids are just different somewhere they already know. They're not waiting for me to tell them what to do. They're already doing it.
No spot in mind? Pick by feeling.
Actual fall color
Go inland and go late: Yorba Regional, Irvine Regional, Riley Wilderness. Late November into December.
Golden California
Dry grass, oaks, hills that glow at sunset. Weir Canyon, Quail Hill. September and October.
The beach
Secretly our best beach season. Thinner crowds, early sunsets, low warm light. I check the tides before I pick one.
Bring the dog. Bring the cat, if your cat's into that sort of thing. And if you want to browse, I keep a map of 26 of my spots, filterable for dogs, permits and tide pools: Orange County photo locations.
A Recent Session
The beach session I was sure would need a miracle.
Not long ago I photographed a family with four kids at the beach. Total chaos. Kids running everywhere, one of them making serious progress toward the ocean and getting soaked.
Inside my head: welp. Getting a whole gallery out of this might require a miracle.
The parents were completely relaxed. Their attitude was basically: our kids are wild. They're going to run around and have fun. That's our family. The gallery came out great, and they were overjoyed, because it looked exactly like the family they know.
That's the thing about a “successful” session. It's relative. Sometimes parents want chaos and I want a little more control. Sometimes I want more movement and they want something traditional. My job isn't to squeeze your family into my idea of a session. It's to find out what you value and get the photograph either way.
Kids are terrible at acting natural. Luckily, they're great at being kids.
The Real Secret
Give them something to do.
Ask a four-year-old to look natural and you'll get a grimace. Ask them to hunt for crabs, race their brother to that tree, chase Dad, or eat a donut, and you get the real thing without asking for it at all. My job gets a lot easier the moment something's happening that isn't me. (That's the whole idea behind my Side Quest sessions, where the thing your family loves doing is the session.)
The Big Question
“Will my kids behave?” is the wrong question.
Better questions: will my kids have fun? Will I? Will we look back on this afternoon and laugh?
A family photo shouldn't just be proof of life. Yep, that's us, we were miserable, but everybody looked fantastic. I'm after the silliness, the running, the face your youngest makes when he's plotting something, and sometimes somebody being a little bit bad. So, two rules. They're mostly for you.
rule one
A happy kid running around and not listening is 100% better than a kid who does what they're told but is unhappy.
rule two
Always look at your kids like they're doing the cutest thing ever.
If they're laughing at being a little bad and you laugh too, I get both of you. If you turn to me frustrated, nobody frames that one.
When somebody wants no part of it, I figure out why first. Shy, tired, overwhelmed, fixated on the playground they can literally see from here? Then I give them a job. What should Mom do next? Want to see the picture? Want to press the button? Sometimes handing a kid a little control changes everything. Now we're doing this together instead of a bunch of adults trying to make them do something.
Say Cheese
Smiling doesn't work that way. (I still get the smiling one.)
“Say cheese” mostly produces the face of a kid at the DMV. So does pointing at me, getting frustrated, or yelling. What works: tickles, jokes, games, running, ridiculous noises. I have a very convincing cat meow. The fart noises still win.
And yes, I still get the traditional one. Everyone looking, everyone smiling, siblings, parents, each kid, the one Grandma wants for the fridge. Then we move on. In an hour I might shoot a thousand frames and deliver about 75, and I'm not only after the family picture. I'm after a stack of pictures that feels like your family. The best part of a book isn't the cover.
What I'm Actually After
The boring stuff is the good stuff.
“It's time to get up in the moooorning!”
My dad thought it was hilarious to wake me up by singing that, loudly and badly, then flipping on the light. A statistics guy from Boston who only ever listened to big band. He had no business attempting that note.
I hated it. Seriously. Hated it. Now I almost miss it. It was annoying, it was also connection, and it was something only my dad did.
That's what I'm after. The drive to school isn't meaningful while you're stuck in traffic. Years later you remember your daughter singing every word, or the little one asleep in the back seat, drooling on the clean shirt you just put on him. That's what I want to slow down with a camera. The stuff that doesn't seem important until one day, somehow, it is.
Before You Leave the House
Feed everyone. Protect the nap. Skip the lecture.
Feed everyone
Before, and snacks in the car. Hungry is the enemy.
Protect the nap
If your youngest naps at four, don't book four thirty and hope. Tell me and we'll build around it.
Skip the lecture
No car-ride speech about behaving. Kids can hear a nervous parent from the third row.
And I'm not above a little bribery. “Ice cream after this” has rescued more family photos than “you better behave” ever will. Tell me about shyness, sensory stuff, stranger anxiety, the kid who hates having his picture taken, too. I'd much rather know going in. There's more in my post on family photos with toddlers.
Timing
When to book fall family photos in Orange County.
A little earlier than feels necessary. Not because the light runs out, but because everyone has the same idea at the same time, so October and November weekends go first. Weekdays are much easier, and the light doesn't know what day it is.
Early fall is beautiful without a single orange leaf and easiest on small kids. If leaf color is the whole point, book late November into December. Holiday cards? Leave yourself enough room for gallery delivery, choosing favorites and printing. I generally recommend getting your session on the calendar by mid-November if cards are the goal. If a real storm shows up, we reschedule.
Twenty minutes
The Weekend Matinee
A set date at a set place. My most structured session, because twenty minutes needs a plan. Good for a yearly update, holiday cards, and kids who warm up fast.
About an hour
The Picture Book
You pick the place, sunset picks the time. Good for kids who need a while to warm up, families who like to wander, and the detours and snack breaks this whole post is about.
Neither one is the upgrade of the other. They're two different afternoons, and I wrote more about choosing between them here.
One More Story
The kid who ran the wrong way.
I asked a little boy to run away, then turn around and run back to hug his mom and dad. He took off sideways. Not away. Sideways, at full speed, toward who knows where. His mom's face said exactly one thing: what are you doing?! Then he banked hard and came charging back, laughing. Apparently this had been the plan all along.
1 · The plan
2 · What are you doing?!
3 · Sideways
4 · All along
one frame doesn't tell it. four do.
One photo of Mom looking irritated doesn't tell that story. One photo of him laughing doesn't either. The sequence does. That's what I'm trying to hand you: not one perfect frame, but the four in a row that make you laugh all over again in fifteen years.
Questions I get every fall
What month is best for fall family photos in Orange County?
October for easy light and holiday-card timing. Late November into December if you want real leaf color. September for warm beach evenings.
When does Orange County actually get fall color?
Mostly late November into December, sometimes into January. It varies by park and by year, and a few planted trees turn early.
What time should fall family photos start?
Roughly an hour before sunset: earlier in canyons and tree-lined parks, later at the beach, where the light holds to the end. I set the time for your spot.
What should we wear for fall family photos?
Warm colors, real texture, and a layer for after sunset. Coordinate instead of matching, and go easy on true black and bright white.
Can we take fall family photos at the beach?
Yes, and fall is one of the best times: thinner crowds, earlier sunsets, low warm light. We shoot on the sand barefoot, so bring slip-ons, and I check the tides before picking a beach.
What if my toddler doesn't cooperate?
Then we follow them for a bit. A happy kid who won't listen beats an obedient, miserable one, and there's a whole post on it above.
Fall Sessions
Thinking about this fall?
Tell me about your family, especially the weird parts. We'll figure out the rest.
See Family SessionsDaniel Wesley
