Father's Day Promo Shoot: A story of hiking to a giant rock

Jessica and Peyton were our models for our Mother's Day Photography Promotion, so for our Father's Day Promotion we decided to use the other half of the family.  We took James and his two sons, Logan and Peyton out to the park!  During initial discussions about the location of the shoot, James told us that there was a trail in the Charlestown State Park that went through a massive rock that looked as if it had been split apart by the trail.  I knew exactly where he was talking about since I had always thought it was the most beautiful spot in the entire state of Indiana.  It is basically right in the middle of the 2.4 mile, rugged terrains of Trail 1.

Concerns:

1. Logan and Peyton are little kids and walking a 2.4 mile trail probably isn't something that they will be very excited about.
2. It is only the first week of June but the climate in Southern Indiana has been sweltering hot with a overwhelming amount of sticky humidity.  Sweaty faces don't make for the best pictures.
3. Bugs.  The tick population has been horrid this year.

We stopped off at the playground first.  The boys immediately headed for the slides and swings and weren't very pleased when we called them back to start getting pictures taken.  Cue Peyton and his favorite word, "No!"  After a few grumpy shots we decided that it would be best to just go with the flow of what the kids would rather be doing and we had everyone climbing on the playground equipment.  Cue the imagination of two young boys, "Watch out there's an alligator!  Over there...a SHARK!"

Next, we set off to hike to the giant split rock.  We stopped several times to take pictures at other interesting spots along the trail...maybe we stopped a little two often.  When photographing kids it is best to be quick about things.  They don't really like to be still or take time out of their day to do things that they don't want to do.  We hadn't even gotten halfway to the split rock before there were complaints of being hungry, and thirsty, and tired, and "is this almost over?"

When we finally did reach the rock, it was a bit of a disappointment.  We had lugged around kids and cameras through poison ivy and a countless number of spider webs only to find that the massive rocks looked less like stone and more like gigantic mounds of moss.  Plus, we were loosing light.  We spent very little time at the rocks.  As we were leaving, one of the boys began to get very chatty.  In one breath, without any pauses, we heard, "I'm hungry I think I see a snake It is so hot Can we get food Is that a bear This trail is really long Are we going to take more pictures I'm tired I'm thirsty Can we go faster How can you walk up this hill I can't even walk up this hill This hill is really hard to walk up I can't even walk Can you walk I don't think I can even walk How can you even walk on this thing I'm hungry Is that a snake Are we going back to the truck now I'm hungry Are bears out here..."  He said all of this so fast that I was out of breath!

Nearing the end of the trail, the kids seemed to gain a burst of energy and started running between the adults (couple of us had picked up the pace just because we were tired of walking through spider webs and we just wanted to get off the trail and back to civilization).  We stopped a few times to take more pictures and then eventually got back to the truck and headed home.  The kids did much better than I thought they would considering it was such a humid hike, and they were a lot of fun.  I'm sure there is never a dull moment in a household with two small children.  This was another photo shoot that turned out to be a great learning experience.

Edit:  You can now view the picture from this shoot here.  You can order prints here, if you have an ordering pass code.