Family Session at Fanal Forest, Madeira. October 2025

Fanal works best when the fog comes in from the north and fills the gaps between the trees. That’s the classic version of the location. But on this morning in October, something different happened: the sun came through, the sky opened up blue, and the fog stayed on the far edge of the plateau. You could see it sitting on the ridge, not moving. A clear morning at Fanal is genuinely unusual. Most sessions here are overcast by design, because overcast is reliable and soft. Sun at Fanal means something else entirely.

The Session

Manuela and her family are Portuguese. They know Madeira, they know the forest. We had no particular agenda beyond being there and letting the morning develop. Their baby boy was at an age where everything on the ground is worth picking up and examining, which means he wasn’t going to stand still for anything arranged.

That’s the right kind of subject for Fanal. The ancient trees have hollows large enough to stand inside, roots that curve into the ground in ways that make natural frames, fallen trunks stretched across the grass. A child that age will find all of it without being directed anywhere.

The cows were out on the plateau. They’re always there, but on a clear day they read differently in a frame: no fog to diffuse them, just animals in a green field behind a family portrait. It gives the photos something specific to Fanal that you don’t get anywhere else on Madeira.

The fog eventually came closer, as it usually does. By the end of the session it was sitting just behind the treeline. That gave us both versions of the location in a single morning: open light with blue sky, then the quieter, flatter tones when the mist moved in. Two moods from one place, which almost never happens.

Fanal for Family Sessions

Fanal is on the list for families because it offers something that beaches and parks don’t: a landscape that’s genuinely strange, old enough that a child will remember being there even if they can’t explain what they remember. The trees at Fanal are centuries old. The shapes they grow into are not what trees usually look like.

Sessions here start early. The drive from Funchal takes about an hour, and the best light is before 9am. For families with young children, the early start is the main logistical challenge. But the plateau is flat and easy to walk, there’s nothing to fall off, and there’s always something new for a child to find on the ground.

Fanal Forest location details

Full gallery: Manuela’s family at Fanal Forest, October 2025