When making better choices for the environment, why shouldn’t that carry over into sustainable photo session practices too?! Celebrating with glitter, champagne, and balloons in photo sessions is fun, but these items are bad for the environment.
As Leave No Trace aware photographers who are doing their best to find sustainable ways to celebrate in photo sessions, we’ve tried to find alternatives for our clients. We want you to party and have fun AND not harm the Earth.
3 Sustainable Photo Session Practices:
- Replace Champagne Pop with Sparkling Water Pop
- Skip Glitter or Synthetic Confetti and Make Leaf Confetti
- Don’t Release Balloons or Lanterns-Plant a Tree, Use Flying Wish Paper, or Make Bubbles
Sparkling Water Pop
Using sparkling water instead of champagne is a good idea for a few reasons. I LOVE champagne and I hate wasting it by letting it fly all over the ground.
We have done a sparkling water pop for many sessions including engagements, proposals, and elopements and it works beautifully (see video below)!
Did you know that when you spray champagne, it is absorbed into the ground, lands on nearby plants, and (depending on the location) can get into the water?? This is not good for the ecosystem as the alcohol is a foreign substance that makes a negative impact on the land, water, and local wildlife.
Sparkling Water Pop Tips from a Sustainable Photographer
Sparkling water in a glass bottle or seltzer water is an amazing alternative to champagne! Make sure it doesn’t have any flavor added because that’s not helpful for the environment. (Remember, you’re not going to drink it…unless you want to).
Plastic-free is always best, but when the store was out of sparkling water in glass bottles, we got seltzer water. Because we have some glass bottles saved, we re-used a clean wine bottle to put the seltzer water in. Then we recycled the seltzer water bottle when we got home.
When you get to your location and are ready, go ahead and pour the water into your bottle. Beware, it might spray everywhere when you open it.
Then it’s time to shake and celebrate! You can rest easy knowing that the water you’re spraying around you won’t hurt the environment or the local wildlife.
Bring that yummy CHILLED champagne or sparkling wine with you as well as some lovely champagne flutes and enjoy drinking it for some photos. Pack up any bottles, caps, or corks to bring home and dispose of properly.
Leaf Confetti
Make your own leaf confetti instead of using glitter or synthetic confetti. We’ve seen other people try this and finally tried it for ourselves (see video below)!
Glitter and most types of confetti are made of plastic and will not break down. With leaf confetti, it breaks down and goes back to the earth! Toss it in the air and throw the scraps in your compost bin/pile and that’s it.
It creates a smaller carbon footprint than ordering off Amazon or driving to the store. Just walk into your yard, look for some leaves on the ground or from an area on your tree that you’ll trim at some point, and gather some leaves. From there, you need a hole punch and a little bit of time. The best part: it doesn’t cost anything!
Alternatives to Balloons + Lanterns
Releasing balloons or lanterns into the environment is harmful. Since balloons are plastic, they are an unnatural substance that won’t break down and should not be consumed by animals. Lanterns aren’t usually made of substances that can be broken down either and add an additional risk of being a fire hazard.
Check out some of the ideas below for some alternatives!
Flying Wish Paper can be found on Amazon OR you can make it yourself from tea bags like we did (see video below)! You can grab a rechargeable lighter, a pen/marker, and some of this paper and make wishes with your family or your partner. Everything can be packed up when you’re finished.
A few words of caution: If doing this outside, make sure there are no fire bans in your area because you are using a lighter. Don’t do this when there is a lot of wind because you won’t be able to clean it up as well and don’t want to cause a fire.
Make your own bubbles. Bubbles are perfect for creating fun photos for couples or families! Use a refillable container and reuse a bubble wand (we have saved some). This is a great zero-waste way to celebrate and you can pack everything up when you’re finished.
You can always plant a tree or some flowers—get your hands messy, play in the dirt, have fun. Make sure that what you are planting is helpful to the local ecosystem and that you’re planting in a place where it is allowed.
We love that couples integrate tree planting into their wedding as their unity ceremony. It’s environmentally conscious and beautiful to watch something grow that you plant together.
Sustainable Photography
As always when you are in nature, be sure to pack everything out that you brought with you and leave no trace. These beautiful outdoor locations are places that we share with wildlife and plants and they should be kept pristine.
There is nothing wrong with having fun and celebrating in your photo session! There is something wrong with harming the environment around you. Be kind and leave the Earth better than how you found it.
For any questions, you can reach out and contact Jonathan and I here and we can start talking about your dream session and how we can incorporate sustainable photo practices into your session.
Sustainable Photo Examples:
If you liked this post, then we think you would enjoy looking through these as well for sustainable photo examples:
Leave No Trace Aware Photographer-What Does That Mean?
