Iconic Balboa Park in San Diego can be intimidating if you’ve never been. It’s HUGE and each little area offers a different vibe for photographers. The photos I’ll be sharing in this post are from a graduation session I did with a senior named Caylie. Like most seniors I photograph, Caylie found me online and picked me to be her photographer because she didn’t want a straight-forward, traditional graduation photo shoot. She wanted to do something different, something artistic that reflected her personality. I always love when my clients say this to me, it makes me feel like my style is shining through in my work. Caylie is also studying photography in school, which made me feel even more honored that she picked me to be her photographer!
Caylie picked my package that offers two locations over 90 minutes. We started out in the beautiful Spanish Village. The biggest advantaged (in my opinion) to photographing in Spanish Village is all of the colorful artwork and paint that covers even the floor of the area. It offers a vibrant, playful feel that works perfect for light-hearted portraits.
After Spanish Village we walked about five minutes through the park to Alcazar Garden, my favorite place to take photos in Balboa Park. It’s a small garden located near the center of the park. During golden hour it gets beautiful light that cuts through the structures of the garden creating beautiful lens flares and golden hues. Here are some of the photos we took there:
We originally planned to stop at two locations, but we were having so much fun and still had some time left. Palm Canyon is right across the parking lot from Alcazar Garden, so we walked over and got some photos on the trail there, too! To get down to the trail you do have to walk down a large set of stairs, so keep this in mind when bringing clients there.
The versatility of Balboa Park is enough reason to make it one of my favorite locations to shoot at in all of San Diego. You can have your client bring a couple of outfits and they can essentially get multiple shoots in one! The most important thing is to check which areas have closures or construction going on to make sure you don’t waste time walking over to an area that isn’t available to the public. Other than that and some crowds, this is the perfect photo shoot location for any kind of shoot. If you’ve read this far, thanks for stopping by! Feel free to give me a follow on instagram: @emilydean.photography 🙂
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