On Sunday, I joined members of the Cisco Digital Photography List for an engagement workshop in North Beach with couple Deven and Krystal. This shoot was inspired by the Meetup Group engagement shoot at Lake Chabot, the results of which I shared with the List. It was a chance to both learn and use some amazing backgrounds like this graffiti covered wall in San Francisco that is constantly being redefined by street artists.
The workshop was run by Jigar Champaneria who had all attendees choose in advance what they wanted to work on and email him, then he helped us try to attain those goals during the workshop. I wanted to work on taking more powerful images that focussed on part of the couple rather than full body compositions. We began with a tour of the neighborhood to find some interesting backgrounds.
Jigar encouraged us to have photos with us on our phones in order to review and show the couple. I wanted a shot somewhat similar to the feel of this one of candid one Aki and Rachel kissing that I took at their mutual birthday party. When I saw this musical background, I knew that is where I wanted to try to set it up the shot, and as Deven was formerly a DJ, it was even more appropriate of a background then I had even expected.
Though I did take some shots of this background with them smiling, I thought a look with toughness and attitude went best with the gate.
When I’ve photographed engagement sessions in the past in general I’ve looked for clean and subtle backgrounds. Here in North Beach we found a Field of Dreams like baseball wall and a wall with red and green that really pops out color wise in photos.
We also found some amazing textures to use to really bring the couple out. Even though we’d been walking and taking photos for a long time, they were still smiling at the end. It was a great opportunity to work with other photographers and I really had fun in addition to learning.
by Danielle Stolman
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