winter at minnehaha. { frost on flower }

I'm always excited when people want to do outdoor sessions in the winter.  It's a nice change from the few free indoor locations available.  What was even better about this session on Saturday was that the couple recently moved here from Texas.. they were a lot more daring to experience the weather than a lot of native Minnesotans are that I photograph!

We spent some time at Minnehaha Falls, by the falls and downstream a bit.  The day was a bit more mild than previous days but was still chilly and breezy.  Luckily down by the falls there was no wind and being without coats wasn't too terrible.  Although having a wet foot from going through the ice on Minnehaha Creek was a little chilly.. but thankfully it was my foot and not the mama's foot!

Here are a few of my favorites:

The frozen falls looked so neat.  People were climbing all over them and behind them.  I wish I had more time to explore but it was a busy day and we had to be careful since our main subject was a pregnant mama.  I think the walk down the snow packed stairs was probably the most treacherous part of our day.























All of the stone walls and bridges had a thin fuzzy ice coating.

















I stayed on the bridge and used my giant 70-200mm lens for these.  I'm glad the mama was wearing red.  :)













This was about where my foot crashed through the ice.  Whoops!





The stairs in the photo below were much much easier than the first set of stairs were descended.  On our way up these stairs a few kids came sliding down the left side.  It looked like tons of fun!  The length that you see in the bottom photo is 1/5 the length of the stairs.. so it was quite the accomplishment for us to successfully make it down and up with a pregnant mama and with our bags!



You can view the entire gallery (80 photos) here.