In case you missed it:
After a rather long hiatus on the photography and blogging front to start 2018, I dove back in headfirst over Memorial Day weekend, having booked a maternity photo session for my sister’s sister-in-law’s co-worker (word-of-mouth advertising should not be underrated, it seems), and trying to fit in engagement photos for my husband’s cousin (this was originally scheduled for mid-April, but we had to get a rain (well, blizzard) check on that one. Gotta love Nebraska weather). So back-to-back Friday and Saturday sessions it was! And we somehow still managed to fit in a canoeing trip with my family in between. Never let us be accused of letting the grass grow under our feet.
Part 1: Seaman Family Photos | Maternity
Part 2
Dexter + Carlson Engagement Photos
Here’s a tip I learned from a portrait photography class I took this spring with Manhattan photographer Erin Poppe: talk to your subjects, have prompts to get them talking (i.e., not yes/no questions) and take their minds off the camera. I found this much easier to do with engagement photos than maternity. The questions are basically written for you already: tell me about your first date, what do you love most about your bride-to-be, when did you know she was the one, what’s the most ridiculous thing he’s done since you said ‘yes’ that made you question that decision (jokingly, of course)?
I tried pulling out some of these questions to start out my engagement session with Paige and Alex, the soon-to-be Carlsons. Paige is Josh’s cousin. We’ve only had a few occasions to meet her fiancé, Alex, a certified farm boy who, according to the story I’ve heard, went to college with the singular goal of finding a wife (well done, sir), so Josh and I were both looking forward to hanging out with them for the evening.
Set up in the romantic, dusty light of Alex’s old barn, I was envisioning photos of the couples looking lovingly into each other’s eyes—you know the ones. I asked Alex to tell Paige the top five things he loved most about her.
Alex immediately took on the look of a deer in the headlights and said, “Uh…Nope.”
To Alex’s credit, I probably should have started with an easier question. To my credit, I got some laughs out of them, at the very least.
So I had to get a little more creative. We tried swing dancing to ‘Fishing in the Dark’ and slow dancing to the High School Musical soundtrack, courtesy of DJ Joshie B. And Josh and I kept on asking questions anyway—sometimes we got answers and sometimes just laughs, and either way worked. We got Alex loosened up—I’m told he even admitted to having fun, which is about the highest praise I could hope for.
Blooper Reel
P.S. Apparently, I should have done a worse job at their engagement pictures, because I could not convince Paige that hiring me to do their wedding would be a terrible mistake. 9/1/18 is gonna be a big day, folks.
Author’s Note: This post was originally published on my former photography-related blog, backroadsbrummer.com, which no longer exists.
