When Kelly contacted me to shoot their wedding, one of the first things we talked about was the engagement shoot. They live north of Knoxville and I am based out of southern Middle Tennessee. We decided to look for a place somewhere in between. I asked around and was recommended to check out Frozen Head State Park (FHSP).
Wow! What a great place! Neither I nor Kelly and Mark and been there before. We choose early November for the shoot to try and capture some fall colors. And it worked out great. What a day we had!
To prepare, I searched the Net for images of FHSP and looked at their online trail map. There are miles and miles of trails. I’m going back to hike someday but an engagement couple doesn’t usually want to spend hours hiking to find a photo op. So I called the visitor center and talked to the park ranger (actually called twice). They were extremely helpful and pointed me out some places that turned out to be exactly what we needed.
So, if you are looking for great scenery with easy parking where you can shoot and be done in three hours – this is the place. We shot mostly in three locations.
- Campground/playground area at Big Cove Trailhead. There’s a wide creek with large rocks to step into the creek without getting wet. There’s also a boardwalk bridge. You can shoot on the bridge down into the creek, on the bridge, or in the creek up to the bridge.
- The trail to Debord Falls is about a half-mile and is wide and flat (with a few rocks and roots sticking up here and there). The trail is wide enough that lots of light filters through the trees without getting too many harsh shadows. (See second pic here.)
- Debord Falls is neat and even neater are all the angles you can shoot. You can shoot from top of stairs down to the falls (see third pic here) next to the falls, or downstream with the falls in the background (fourth pic here).
