Bolm-Schuhkraft Park

Location

Jul 31

Bolm-Schuhkraft Park in Columbia, IL is perfect for a one-hour session. It offers a beautiful willow tree, open fields, a brick building, and plenty of woods for the background in your senior pictures.

Check out my list of the top senior picture locations in St. Louis, MO to get inspired by more locations to have your senior pictures taken.

The Best Part About Bolm-Schuhkraft Park

The open fields in Bolm-Schuhkraft Park are perfect for standing or sitting in the grass with trees behind you. This is the perfect place to bring along props to set out on the ground in front of you, act like you’re playing an instrument, spreading books out all around you, or even just sitting on a blanket.

There’s also a pine tree that’s perfect to lean against or sit under and surround yourself with pinecones and pine needles. You can even head to the back of the park to be fully engulfed in trees, feeling surrounded by nature. Or head over to the willow tree and stand inside all the branches for a lovely frame around you. One cedar tree on the premises even has a hole in it where you can climb underneath and sit under all the branches.

You can even sit on a picnic table under the pavilion or lay on a bench. If you are looking for some tennis player portraits, you can head over to the tennis courts. If you’re not a tennis player, you can still utilize the fence by standing behind it or leaning against it, and the net makes for great poses either sitting by or leaning on it. You can dip your toes in the sand over by the sand volleyball net. This is also perfect to utilize if you’re a volleyball player. Basketball players and rollerblade hockey players have courts as well that you can pose on, whether you play those sports or not.

There are even a couple brick buildings that you can lean or sit against to mix up the background a little bit. The buildings could even be in your background with you standing away from them and getting them as a blurred-out background. Bring some chalk along to write your graduating year on the brick. This is a great way to take some fun portraits where you’re point at your graduating year.

What to Expect Each Season

Spring

There aren’t very many flowers around this park, but the beautiful light greens and budding trees make Bolm-Schuhkraft Park great for spring portraits. With the open fields, you’ll even be able to get lovely puffy clouds in your backgrounds.

Summer

With all the trees around Bolm-Schuhkraft Park, that means there’s plenty of shade which is great to help beat the summer heat. There are a few places, like the open fields, that you can’t escape the sun, but there are plenty of spots where you can stay shady and get beautiful backgrounds as well.

Fall

Bolm-Schuhkraft Park is the perfect fall location since it’s surrounded by trees. This means there’s plenty of fall colors to go around. The highlight tree is a large oak that has a bunch of leaves on the ground all around it, making for the perfect location to sit in leaves or gather them up and toss them in the air.

Winter

With Bolm-Schuhkraft Park being surrounded by trees, there isn’t much to see in the winter. However, a good snow can turn this park into a winter wonderland and would be perfect for snow portraits. The trees would turn from leafless to snow covered, and the ground would be a blanket of white snow.

Pricing and Accommodations

Bolm-Schuhkraft is mostly quiet and absolutely free. It is open to the public 7 days a week. There are restrooms next to the tennis courts and near the pavilion that’s farthest back.