Uxbridge Christmas Photos at the Reindeer Farm!

You know when you have one of those moments that's like "wow this is a really great idea"? Well this fall, I had one of those great idea moments. On the weekend that I was doing my fall mini sessions, an elk farm followed my Instagram page. I thought that was pretty cool, but I live in a small town so it didn't seem overly mind-blowing or inspirational right in that moment. However, later that night someone messaged me asking about weather I'd be doing Christmas mini sessions and that if I were they would like to book. I thought Maybe the barn where I'd done the fall photos would re-host me for so Christmas photos, although id just been there and I felt like a bit of a copout on the creativity front. That's when I had the "ah ha" moment and thought back to the Elk farm.

Uxbridge Family Christmas Photographer Justyne Edgell

Elk are pretty much reindeer (they're not exactly but pretty close). Christmas photos with the reindeer just seemed like the absolute cutest and most Christmas-y thing and I immediately got so excited. I send the farm a DM on Instagram to see if they'd be open to my idea, and sure enough, they were!

We set up a meeting where I could go out and visit the farm to talk about the logistics. I took a bit more planning than "this day works and I'll put my stuff here." The reindeer are quite wild so they don't just stick around the people like pets would. In fact, they're actually quite skittish and afraid of people. They do however, like snack and we figured that with a bit of coaxing with snack time we could get them to stick around the fence long enough for a few sessions at a time. The plan was just having the deer more as background decoration and not as a subject or a prop.

Over the next few weeks I planned out my set-up and props. luckily for me, my boyfriends family are antiquers, so a trip to their shed and basement is pretty much all I needed to get some gorgeous antique sleds, crates and barrels and then a bit of digging through the Christmas decoration bin for some colour and accent pieces.

In the week leading up to the mini sessions the weather forecast looked a bit ominous. For the Saturday sessions, sunny and 10 degrees, but or Sunday... rain and high wind warnings...

The Saturday sessions went so well! It was a gorgeous day and the reindeer behaved so well. At first they were a bit wary or people hanging around but once they realized there seemed to be a lot of snack action, they were okay with us invading their space a little. We had 4 families come for photos and the experience of being at the reindeer farm was so much better than just winter photos in the forest. (Winter photos in he forest are also great! Don't' get me wrong! But Christmas photos with the reindeer are just a tad cuter.)

2020 threw us a curve ball and we had to postpone the Sunday session, bumping it to the following weekend. We then also had to bump the Saturday session to the Sunday to work around some personal issues that kept the farm family away for the day.

But when Sunday finally rolled around we were blessed with a winter wonderland! The first snowstorm of the season hit, and it did not disappoint. We had huge ,fluffy snowflakes that coated all fields, and people and props in a magic blanket of white. It was the perfect topper to winter photos. We whipped through 8 families in 2 hours and managed not to lose any fingers of toes from frostbite! It was such a perfect way to kick off winter.