Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! A special congratulations to anyone who may have just become engaged today, one of the most popular days to be presented with a diamond ring and asked the question.
To a photographer like myself, an engagement session is usually one in which a couple is already engaged (though I have photographed a surprise proposal and would love to photograph more), a chance for them to work with me one on one and be photographed in a lot of great moments as a couple. For some its even their first chance to have professional photos of just the two of them.
Yesterday, I photographed the engagement session of Carolynn and Chris at Lake Chabot Regional Park. Unlike most of my typical engagement shots, there were other people along.
While the photographers in the above shot were all put into place by myself as a tongue in cheek group portrait, all of them really were in the same shoot as myself, along with yet another photographer who arrived a bit later and shot 4×5 film photos. I’d instructed them to all shoot our subjects, I like how some image viewing/chimping is going on as well in the action. We were all part of a special Meetup group, and though I’ve never taken an engagement photo workshop before, I thought it would be a fun opportunity to see just how we would all go about getting our shots.
Chris admitted with a laugh that he hadn’t finished the book he is using as a prop here, Jane Eyre. I admitted it took me quite a long time to finish it, also, though I did like the film adaption I had seen of it many years prior to reading the book. Even with so many cameras pointed a them, there were so many laughing and smiling shots of them throughout the day.
Just having one photographer making adjustments and suggestions for a while can be a little stressful for some couples, yet Carolynn and Chris took it in stride. After the book shots, I suggested we move to the picnic table area which had better backgrounds and beautiful difussed sunlight, and they readily agreed.
After some beautiful shots of them tuning into each other, and tuning out completely the entire world, they were asked if they would pose on the picnic tables, and danced for us, an activity they enjoy doing on a regular basis at clubs like The Saddle Rack in Fremont.
We then took a quick group poll and everyone was ready for a change in scenery and for our couple to make a wardrobe change. Their second outfits were really stunning and really brought out their personalities visually.
Those latter two photos were taken while they, the photographers, and some people who happened to be out fishing were all on a dock that rolled quite a bit during the process. Jokes were made about needing image stablization just to counteract the dock motion. When I asked Chris if he could pick Carolynn up for a few shots safely, I was a tiny bit worried the swaying dock would make it impossible. However, they held this pose for quite a few photos.
We then moved down to some other areas around the lake. Another dock we wanted to use was gated in, so we did what any adventurous group of photographers would do and went around to a side of the dock that was not gated in.
We then used the stairway we had come down to reach the forbidden dock as its own setting.
For our last shots, we sat the couple on a cement stump resembling object. We had been shooting them for about three hours, and they still were all smiles and looking happy and in love even with the last clicks of the shutter. I had a wonderful time on this shoot, and though I would never attempt a wedding with this many official photographers (even as an experiment), it worked out great. Thank you, Carolynn and Chris, for being such great models and good sports with so many lenses pointed at you.
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