Filoli Couples Photography: A Return Session in Woodside
A couple of months ago I spent a morning with these two down on the coast, along the cliffs at 17 Mile Drive. When they got back in touch, the brief was short: somewhere new, somewhere neither of them had been, time to refresh the pictures that hang on the wall at home. Neither had ever walked through the gates at Filoli. That settled it.
Most Filoli couples photography you'll find online is an engagement session, one stop on the way to a wedding. This wasn't that. These two have been together a long time, and it shows in the easy way they stand next to each other. Nothing to rehearse, no nerves to talk anyone out of. The job was simpler and, honestly, more interesting: make pictures that look like who they are now, in a place worth the drive.
The beautiful reflecting pool where the morning started.
Filoli sits on a few hundred acres in Woodside, on the wooded edge of the Peninsula where the fog burns off late and the light stays soft longer than it does down in the valley. It's a 1917 country house with formal gardens laid out behind it. We started out by the reflecting pool below the clock tower, while the morning was still cool.
Through the gate, the gardens open up.
Through the gate, the gardens open up. The brick entrance arch, with the Filoli crest carved above it and a cypress allée running away behind, is one of those frames that does half the work for you. Stand a couple under it, let them settle, and the architecture carries the picture.
A practical note, since people always ask: for personal portraits you only need a regular garden ticket, not a photography permit. Mornings are best, before the midday sun gets hard and the visitor traffic builds.
An arch borrowed from the morning light.
From there we worked toward the rose garden while the blooms still held their morning shape. I framed them under an ivy arch with the garden glowing behind, the kind of depth Filoli hands you for free when you place people where the light falls off behind them.
Symmetry the garden built, not me.
The formal steps are flanked with terracotta pots of pansies that make a natural runway toward the allée. That symmetry is the garden's doing, not mine. I'm not a poser. I'd rather give people a direction and something to do than arrange their hands, and a setting this formal lets you keep the people loose because the architecture is already carrying the polish.
The rose garden, still cool and holding its shape.
Inside the walled rose garden, the boxwood beds and climbing roses do all the set dressing. What makes Filoli work for a couples session isn't any single backdrop. It's that you can get four or five completely different looks in a short walk without leaving the property or fighting a crowd for a clean background. It's one of my favorite Bay Area photography locations for exactly that reason.
Better to walk than to pose.
Some of the frames I like best from the morning are just the two of them moving down a path together, talking, not looking at the camera at all. A natural-light session lives on that kind of ease, and a couple who've logged this many years together hand it to you without being asked.
Soft light, soft roses, a held breath.
Color is everywhere at Filoli, which is a gift and a trap. The trick is letting the background stay rich while keeping it from pulling attention off the face, and that's mostly a matter of where you stand and how much you let go soft behind. Beside the apricot roses, in open shade, the light did the rest.
The cutting garden, up close.
The cutting garden runs riot with color by early summer, and I stopped for the dahlias on the way through. A garden session needs a few of these quieter frames to breathe between the portraits.
The formal gardens are only half of Filoli. Beyond them the property opens into redwoods and natural lands laced with trails, and right now those trails are part of the reason to come. Filoli's current exhibition, Creating Home, has tucked enormous nest-like sculptures through the woods, built from found branches and organic material by California artist Jayson Fann, all of it themed around home, habitat, and belonging. We stopped at one of the big woven nests on the way through. It gives a couples photo a sense of scale you can't fake, and it fit the day without my planning it: two people who've spent decades building a home together, standing inside a sculpture about exactly that.
Couple at a giant woven nest sculpture from the Creating Home exhibition at Filoli natural lands, Woodside
Further along the trail you'll find the troll. He's the work of Danish recycle artist Thomas Dambo, built entirely from reclaimed wood, and he towers over anyone who walks up to him. (Not a Burning Man piece, though I understand the guess. Dambo's folklore trolls live in gardens and forests all over the world, and one of them has settled into Filoli's natural lands.) For a couples session he's pure fun, a sense-of-scale frame that loosens everyone up after the formality of the rose garden. Bring kids and the nests and the troll turn the trail into its own small adventure.
The Thomas Dambo troll, towering over the natural lands.
An empty floor, and they just started dancing.
Here's where the morning left the usual path. Almost every Filoli couples shoot stays in the gardens and never opens the door to the house. But the historic house is open to visitors, and the interiors are some of the best portrait light on the Peninsula, so we went in.
The ballroom did the rest. A long room with a wood floor, pale paneled walls, gold detailing, and tall arched windows throwing light across the floor. It was empty. They started dancing. I didn't ask them to, and that's exactly why it's the best sequence of the day. A dip, a real laugh, her hat tipping back. I kept my distance and let it run.
Looking at the same thing.
A few rooms on, the light did something I couldn't have planned. The two of them stepped up to a tall window draped in old silk and simply looked out at it together, side by side, his arm around her shoulder, the afternoon sun raking in warm and low. I stopped repositioning anyone and let it be.
The looking-at-each-other shots are lovely, and we made plenty. But the looking-at-the-same-thing shot, both of them quiet and turned toward the light, is the one that says the most about a couple who've stood next to each other for decades.
An unscripted toast in the billiard room.
In the old billiard room, a tray of cut-crystal glasses turned into an unscripted toast. None of the interior work was on a shot list. The house just kept offering things, and a couple this comfortable with each other kept taking them.
Two people who've logged a lot of miles together.
If you're considering Filoli for couples photography, my advice is to treat the gardens as the start and not the whole story. Book a morning, let the light be soft, and leave time to wander inside the house, because the rooms there are extraordinary and almost nobody uses them. If you'd like to plan a session, get in touch or read more about my personal lifestyle and couples work.