For all that I live only minutes away from Vally Forge National Park, I hadn’t been there until Katelyn asked to do her and Mark’s engagement shots there. Sure, I’ve driven through the park, which has lots of roads that run around the perimeter, and do not take you deeper into the actual park itself, but that hardly counts.
I did a bit of scouting to try and get my bearings and figure out what the surroundings are like, and found that it was a little bit different than what I was used to around this area. Ok, a lot different. Most of the parks that I have been to here in eastern Pennsylvania are largely wooded, where you are walking on paths through a foresty type of environment. Valley Forge offer wide open space! Huge fields with trees in the distance. Sure, that’s not the entirety of the park (which actually has plenty of forested areas…) but to me it was one of it’s distinguishing features! It reminded me of the scenery that I shot when I lived in Kansas, a little bit.
Katelyn and Mark actually got engaged in the park, so aside from the place’s general historical significance, it was a meaningful place for this shoot. They were very familiar with the park, so as a bonus, I got a much better tour of the place than I could have gotten by doing more running around myself. And now I’ll be coming back here just to find more spots that we didn’t hit. Something tells me I’m going to be spending a lot of time here!
