In the spring of 2025, I had my first photoshoot at Loose Park! This was super early in my transition to the Kansas City market (but like barely because my client drove from Wichita for the shoot) and omg did I learn some things.

Loose Park is a big gorgeous park close to the Plaza in Kansas City, Missouri. It has a few different cool areas to shoot in, which I was really excited about. I had only been there once before to just walk around and check it out, but I knew it was a really popular spot with KC photographers.

I arrived to the shoot a little early, so I took the time to walk around a little and pick out some spots. While I was walking around, I saw these little signs everywhere that said photo permit required (uh oh). There was a QR code which I immediately scanned, thinking I could just pay for the permit right then and there. Nope. It was only $25, but it required a MINIMUM of 4 days notice for approval. Well that obviously wasn’t going to work, because my client was ten minutes away and drove from Wichita to shoot there! We just kind of rolled with it, and hoped no one came and interrupted us. My backup plan was to just tell them it was for a school project (this is my go to excuse for being somewhere I shouldn’t be lol).

Luckily, no one came up to us and we were able to shoot without getting kicked out. I’m not sure if anyone even regularly checks for permits, but in the future, I will definitely play it safe. This unfortunately left me pretty discouraged because there were already a few locations on my list that I had found out either required hefty fees or didn’t allow photography at all. This wasn’t something I’d experienced much in Wichita, so it was just another learning curve for expanding to a new city.

Other than that somewhat unfortunate realization, our shoot turned out beautifully. It was kind of a gloomy day, but it made for a stunning moody spring vibe. Despite some hurdles, it made me really excited to get use out of a new location.