Fine Art Portraits · Chelmsford, MA
Fourteen places I know by heart.
From five minutes down the road to the far side of Cape Ann — and one of them is right for your family.
I do not photograph everywhere. I return to a small number of places I know well enough to plan an evening around: where the light lands in October, which week the color turns, where you park, what it costs, whether you need a permit and how far you walk. That knowledge is most of what separates a good session from a lucky one. Each page below is what I have learned about that place, written out in full.
The short version
What every location on this list has in common.
- How many
- FourteenPlus the Chelmsford studio, year round
- Closest
- Five minutesChelmsford, then Lowell and Carlisle at fifteen
- Furthest
- Fifty-five minutesBird Park in Walpole · two coasts at fifty
- Admission
- Free at elevenThe two beaches charge parking in season
- Permits
- Three of fourteenBird Park, Stevens-Coolidge, Larz Anderson · I handle them
- Best months
- Late Sept – mid OctThen late April to June, depending on the place
- Best light
- Final 90 minutesAt the beaches, planned against the tide as well
- Choosing
- Together, before the dayDecided at your Design Consultation · one location per session
How to choose
Four kinds of place, not fourteen addresses.
Most families arrive without a location in mind, which is the right way round — you know what you want the pictures to feel like long before you know where to stand. So start here rather than with a map. Tell me which of these four sounds like your family and the address takes care of itself. If none of them does, we photograph in the studio, which is its own answer and a good one.
Gardens & Estates
Designed landscape — beds, boardwalks, glasshouses, walled roses, ivy steps and wrought iron. Color does the work for you. Acton Arboretum, Stevens-Coolidge in North Andover, the Buttrick Gardens above the North Bridge, and Larz Anderson Park in Brookline.
Woods, Farm & Park
Space, hay, deep leaf fall, stone walls, ponds and animals. The warmest and least formal of the four, and the easiest with small children, who can run. Great Brook Farm in Carlisle, Bird Park in Walpole, Benson Park over the New Hampshire line, Assabet River in Sudbury, and the ponds and trails around Chelmsford.
Stone, Brick & History
Fieldstone, weathered wood, mill brick, cast iron and city street. Portraits made here carry weight without any styling at all. Bancroft’s Castle above Groton, the Old North Bridge in Concord, the Lowell mill district and its rolling stock, and Boston — the Public Garden, Beacon Hill and Newbury Street.
Water & Coast
Open sky, tidal flats, granite and salt marsh. The two locations booked against a tide chart, and the ones families make an evening of. Wingaersheek Beach in Gloucester, and Salisbury Beach at the mouth of the Merrimack.
The locations
Within half an hour.
Chelmsford, MA · 5 minutes
Chelmsford
Where the studio is. Bartlett Park, Red Wing Farm and Heart Pond, all inside ten minutes of the door — no permit anywhere in town, and a rain plan a short drive away.
Lowell, MA · 15 minutes
Lowell
Red brick, cast iron and five and a half miles of canal. The only location on this list where the background is a machine — and the one that works at any hour of a bright day.
Carlisle, MA · 15 minutes
Great Brook Farm
A thousand acres of state park built around a working dairy. Hayfields, a quiet pond, split-rail fences, barns and cows — and an ice cream stand at the end of it.
Acton, MA · 20 minutes
Acton Arboretum
Sixty-five acres of designed garden — boardwalks over the bog, a red bridge, and beds planted for succession so something is always in flower. The greenest of the fourteen.
Concord, MA · 25 minutes
The Old North Bridge
The arched bridge over the Concord River, the 1836 obelisk on the far bank, and six acres of formal Buttrick garden on the hill above it. The most classically New England of them all.
Hudson, NH · 25 minutes
Benson Park
A hundred and sixty-eight acres that used to be a wild animal farm. A pond, granite steps that seat twelve, paved level paths — free, flat, and dogs welcome.
Groton, MA · 25 minutes
Bancroft’s Castle
A burned-out 1906 stone house on a 469-foot hilltop, with the Nashoba Valley behind it and cattle in the field on the way up. Half a mile uphill, and the only castle on the list.
Sudbury, MA · 25 minutes
Assabet River
Two thousand acres of former Army ammunition depot, now a national wildlife refuge. Level packed gravel the whole way and deep leaf fall under tall pines. No dogs.
North Andover, MA · 30 minutes
Stevens-Coolidge
A walled rose garden, a serpentine brick wall and a pair of stone gate piers, on land the Stevens family has held since 1729. The most formal location on the list.
Worth the drive.
Boston, MA · 40 minutes
Boston
The Public Garden lagoon, the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, Beacon Hill brick and Newbury Street iron. No permit needed for a handheld portrait session, which surprises most people.
Brookline, MA · 45 minutes
Larz Anderson Park
Open lawns, tall trees, a lagoon and a stone rotunda on the largest park in Brookline. The right choice for families already south of Route 128.
Salisbury, MA · 50 minutes
Salisbury Beach
Salt marsh, dune grass and four miles of open sand at the mouth of the Merrimack. Warm and busy in high summer, empty and gold after Labor Day — two different sessions in one place.
Gloucester, MA · 50 minutes
Wingaersheek Beach
Sandbars, granite outcrops and the Annisquam light across the channel. Booked against the tide chart as well as the sunset, and the one location worth an hour in the car.
Walpole, MA · 55 minutes
Bird Park
Eighty-nine acres of meadow, stone bridges and a great lawn, built as a memorial in 1925. The furthest location on the list, and the one families south of Boston drive to instead of coming north.
And the Chelmsford studio, year round, whatever the weather is doing.
Before you pick one
You are not choosing this on your own.
Every commission begins with a Design Consultation, and choosing where to photograph is part of it. I ask what you want on the wall, who is in the picture, how old the children are and how far you are willing to drive — and then I recommend one place and one evening. Nobody has ever had to pick from a list.
What they all have in common is that I book them at the same hour and for the same reason: the last ninety minutes of light, planned against the season and, at the two beaches, against the tide. That is not a preference. It is the whole reason the frames look the way they do, and it is why sessions in the strongest weeks of the year go out further ahead than people expect.
- Commissions from $1,450
- One location per session
- Rain moves the date, at no charge
- Chelmsford studio, year round
Limited sessions each season
The best three weeks of the year are the same three weeks for everyone.
Autumn dates fill first at every location on this list, and the October weekends go earliest. Serving families across Chelmsford, Lowell, Carlisle, Concord, Acton, Groton, Sudbury, Westford, Billerica, Bedford, North Andover, Salisbury, Gloucester, Brookline, Walpole and Greater Boston, Massachusetts, and Hudson and Nashua, New Hampshire.