{ Berkley } | Codorus State Park Portrait Session

This portrait session couldn't have been more than perfection. Checking the weather forecast earlier in the day was a scary thing with scattered thunderstorms galore! But I prayed (& even had Nathan pray) that the storms would be held back just long enough to snap a few shots to make the drive out to Codorus State Park worth it. God heard us out and pushed those storms aside just in time.

On a side note, everyone likes a good background story, right? Here's how I met this session's model, Berkley! A few weeks back, my husband and I took about 15 kids from our church to summer camp. We also were each camp counselors for cabins of about 10 third and fourth grade boys (Nathan) and girls (me) for the week. Needless to say, we were wiped out by the time we pulled back into the driveway of our little townhouse. I proudly declare that our kids made decisions and won all kinds of awards! But that wasn't the only awesome thing about the week. I had the joy to share a cabin with the amazing Ms. Berkley, the most fun camp counselor at Camp Tohiglo! During the week, I got to know this beautiful soul. You'll see some of her personality through the pictures, but I thought I'd sum her up in a Samantha Walsh Dictionary definition.

Berkley [ burk-lee ] (n.) / unique, beautiful, quirky, and free-spirited

Back to the shoot—I met Berkley at the Sailboat Launch right as the storm clouds shifted across the horizon, away from us. We shot some preliminary photos along the shore of Lake Marburg. There's always the obvious photography elephant in the room that it's always slightly awkward to have someone about two feet away from your face with a camera pointed your direction. Because of that, it's so important to me as a photographer to try to help make my clients loosen up and get comfortable in front of the camera. Having a little audience watching you pose wouldn't usually help, but in our case, it helped add some more laughs to the equation! From docks, to wildflowers, to tall grasses, to greenery—we snapped away, shot after shot, to make this gorgeous gallery! For most of the shoot, the backdrop was paradoxical with stormy skies and calm water, but by the end, we caught some warm sunlight peeking through the trees. Berkley was an absolute stunner, but I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking!