I grew up in beautiful Mount Dora, FL. It's a cute little antique town known for it's huge art festivals. Growing up only a few miles away, my best friends and I often visited the Gilbert Park Playground when it opened in 1994. It was one of my favorite places to go. It was a huge wooden playscape with lots to do. Five slides of varying sizes, toddler swings, a tire swing, even bars with a "tight rope" to walk across, wheels, monkey bars, a rigid "zip line", a million places to climb and more! It was huge and it had EVERYTHING.
As time went on things broke and they replaced it. It was a wooden structure and it was easy to just replace simple parts. But as it reached it's 25th year of life the City of Mount Dora decided to give up on it and come up with a budget for a new one. As things broke, they ripped it down. Piece. By. Piece. Slowly, my friends' and my favorite playground started disappearing.
When we moved back to the area last year, I of course took my son Zach to the playground. Half of the playground was gone! I was so sad about it, but at least the main structure remained. Well, until the last week of September.
I learned in August that the remaining bit of the structure was going to be ripped out the last week of September to make way for a new *metal* pirate ship structure. I was not happy and I knew I needed to capture photos of Zach playing on my childhood playground before it disappeared for good. (I have other thoughts but I'll leave it at that.)
So the last weekend it was open we made our way over to Gilbert Park for one last bittersweet play through the original playscape that was my childhood home. Needless to say, I will cherish these photos.
Stories like mine are why and where I draw my inspiration from. I would absolutely love to photograph your family at your favorite park in a lifestyle session. Drop a line if you'd be interested and I can make a custom session tailored to your budget.
