Drumheller Engagement Photography at Beautiful Horseshoe Canyon

We scheduled this weekend months in advance and the session was timed right around golden hour- unfortunately the weather gods were not with us and conditions were gloomy to say the least! Luckily for us our couple brought the sunshine and the backdrop is stunning in pretty much any conditions!

Horseshoe Canyon is located just west of Drumheller, and funnily enough we hadn’t heard of it until recently (see also: Horsethief Canyon. Totally different location, equally spectacular but 30 mins away the other side of Drumheller- a lesson we hard learnt the hard way on a session the previous evening!). It’s easy access from Calgary if you’re coming in that way, located right off the highway. It’s a short walk down to the canyon floor from the parking lot, made easier by steps the whole way down, but a word of caution, parts can be slippery in the rain so please take care.

Once down in the Canyon, we quickly found out that away from the gravel path, the clay had become rather soft underfoot…we were literally sinking into the stuff and it was sticking to our shoes to the point where it felt like you’re wearing lead boots!! So we had to pretty much stay close to the main path for the session, but the rain had eased a little by now, and we were all getting used to the idea it wasn’t going to be a golden hour shoot, per se.

Drumheller is such a special and other-worldly landscape, it’s so amazing to have such a variety of stunning landscapes to use for engagement sessions in central Alberta. This part of the province in particular, has probably become my favourite personally- it’s so much fun exploring the canyons and Drumheller is a cool little town.

Did you know we offer a 3hr Adventure engagement session available for wedding photography clients to upgrade to? This would be the perfect location for the longer session- once you get further into the canyons and off the beaten path there is so much to explore! The Adventure session is really the two of you on an adventure together, with us tagging along to document it and supply the champagne! It makes for lots of genuine and candid moments and of course we make time for the regular engagement session stuff too!

Just a side note- thats 3 rainy sessions on the spin, in a desert! Golden hour goodness (almost) guaranteed for the next couple who book a Badlands engagement session with us!