A Heartwarming Family Photoshoot at Willow Creek Reservoir Park, Rochester, MN

Three generations, open light, and a toddler with zero interest in looking at the camera. That’s Willow Creek on a good day.

This family has been coming back to me since their eldest took his first steps. This time, they brought their second son along, and their parents who had flown in from India to meet the grandkids. A proper multigenerational session.

The Camera-Shy Grandparents

Not every family grows up posing for portraits. For these grandparents, standing in a park while someone pointed a camera at them was genuinely unfamiliar. Composed, a little uncertain, clearly unsure what to do with their hands.

And then the moment I lowered the camera, full beaming smiles. The kind that take over your whole face.

So I stopped directing them entirely. Let the grandkids pull their attention. The camera became background noise, and the real expressions came out. Some of my favorite frames from this session are the grandparents watching their grandson run through the grass, completely unaware of the lens. That’s the documentary approach. You don’t manufacture the moment. You wait for it.

Why Willow Creek Reservoir?

I first discovered this park while photographing a wedding at the DoubleTree Hotel. The couple was getting ready in the hotel suite and wanted a water setting. Silver Lake was too busy, so we drove south, and I’ve been coming back ever since.

You might know it as the park next to Willow Creek Golf Course, one of the more affordable wedding venues in the Med City. It’s also one of my favorite spots for engagement sessions. Trails circle the lake through rolling hills, tall grass, and dense forest. It rarely feels crowded, it’s dog-friendly, and the light over the water on a humid summer afternoon is hard to beat anywhere in Rochester.

A few spots worth knowing by season:

• Summer (west end, off Reservoir Dr SW): tall grasses along the water, great for candid portraits where kids just run and you follow.
• Fall (near 60th St SW): sumac turns deep red and orange against the lake. One of the best natural backdrops in the city for autumn sessions.
• Year-round: a kid “fishing” with a stick near the dock. No direction needed.

What These Images Are For

These clients are Mayo Clinic physicians. Their parents live in India. The images from this session aren’t wall decoration. They’re what gets shared in a family WhatsApp group, framed in a living room in Chennai, pulled up on a phone to show a neighbor how big the boys have gotten.

If you want to go deeper on how I work with young children, there’s a dedicated page on toddler photography in Rochester.

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