When Lauren asked me about a family portrait session somewhere in Central Austin, Mueller Lake Park turned out to be just perfect.
We ran along the trails, played in the grass, waved to a bunch of dogs, ran into at least one old friend, checked out the lake, climbed some huge stones and played hide and seek in the trees.
Of course along the way, we took a bunch of photos and had a lot of fun together.
Being such a beautiful, centrally located park, Mueller Lake Park can be absolutely packed full of people (and dogs!!) on a weekend afternoon.
You’ll find yourself surrounded by families just having a great time enjoying the amenities that the park has to offer.
For family portrait sessions, there’s four or five distinct areas available around the park. Our favorites activities for outdoor sessions are anything that gets everyone up and moving around.
And at Mueller, the walking trails are great for this. The Lake itself is surrounded by beautiful grassy areas and there are groups of trees that offer some shade as well. They also have these huge red stones along the western edge of the lake, these are fun to climb up and down but are little too large for a toddler but luckily we had a couple of parents around to do the heavy lifting for us.
There’s a few architectural features, most notably the huge historic wooden truss hangar, which is known as the Browning Hangar and was built in the 40’s.
The hangar is used frequently, playing host to farmer’s markets and live entertainment performances.
Even with the crowds at Mueller Lake Park on a weekend afternoon, there’s enough park (over 30 acres!!) to be able to find your own spot to hang out.
The busiest area is the playground that is just across the street from The Thinkery, which is such an amazing place to visit. If you haven’t been, it’s worth checking out. They sometimes even do adult only nights with a free drink or two!
We really love how this session turned out, we had Everett and Mike run around when everyone needed a little break and quite a few Nerds candies were handed out to keep things moving smoothly (great idea Lauren! Whatever works, ya know!).