As a Philadelphia area wedding photographer, I am often asked the question “where do you recommend we take engagement photos?” My answer is always the same.
Where your life is lived.
Engagement photos are lifestyle photos. The state of being engaged is just a short part of your life. It’s a part of who you are as a couple but does it define you? No, of course not. It does define this stage of your life though, certainly. It’s romantic and stressful and fun and sometimes intense. It’s about a promise and a follow through. It’s about compromise and commitment. Occasionally tears fall. And often, if we’re lucky, a whole lot of laughter happens.
But how exactly does that play out in photos? For me it’s about vulnerability. That impossibly beautiful thing we love, respect and honor in others and hate in ourselves. As I work on this for myself I realized it’s the very thing I have always asked from my subjects.
Be present with each other. Be real. Breathe…..
Sometimes we play a game or two to loosen up but in the end the photos are about your life, your style, your unique relationship with the world and each other.
Pick an activity and place that defines this place you are in (right now) in your lives. We’ll go play there.
As I have now shot hundreds of these sessions the biggest thing I have learned is to let my subjects be their authentic selves. I will worry about the light, the background elements, and I’ll even direct just enough to line up everything to make the perfect image. In the end though, the subject’s themselves define the greatness of the image. Are they connecting to one another? Does it feel real? Does their body language reflect their nervousness of being photographed or does it tell a greater story about what they feel and care about?
The images we love are the ones that make us feel something that we perceive as genuine.
The images my client select are sometimes just a pretty straightforward image that they both look great but the ones they love and come back to time and again are the true lifestyle type images.
Be open to the unexpected.
Click any of these images from Diana and Michael’s recent Philadelphia engagement session to view them larger.
We’re telling your story here and life is full of beautiful, impromptu moments and inconvenient interruptions. They become part of your story as you go, so go ahead and laugh like no one is watching.
So, get into your kayak and drink more wine.
