Portrait | The Wilkey Family | Red Rocks Amphitheatre

February 3, 2012

This portrait session has been quite a few years in the making! For almost the past 5 years Jill has been talking about me doing a portrait shoot for her family but timing hasn’t quite worked out until now. We decided on Sunday since that was the best day and luckily for us the weather matched up. They decided that they wanted to start the session at the Red Rock Amphitheatre and then head up to Echo Lake on Mount Evans.

I had no idea what to expect with either location but boy did Red Rock kick my butt. Not only is there 100+ steps to get to the top but there is a sharp hill/incline to climb before that. I have asthma thanks to growing up with parents who smoked and also am allergic to cold temperatures which one of the side effects is my lungs shutting down when it is cold. It was about 40 degrees that day but it was really windy at the park making the wind chill somewhere around 20 degrees or so. Those things combined with altitude and heavy camera gear made for an adventure! I don’t recommend it! But I managed to do the session despite the wheezing and hives and the view from the top was definitely pretty awesome. All of the pictures at Red Rock were done where the stage is so that in itself is kind of cool.

Echo Lake was a definite favorite though, surprisingly it was warmer to me up there despite it being about 10 degrees cooler (no wind!) and the sun was just awesome. I guess Echo Lake is a bit above 12K so that part was neat too, the views are just amazing. The kids weren’t digging the cold though so the session there lasted for maybe 10 minutes if that.

family portrait at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in colorado