Lindsey and Justin

The Riverwoods in Provo is a beautiful spot for photography, with lots of interesting architecture and greenery. It was one of the first locations I ever did a couples shoot at, too, so going back was nicely nostalgic. It had been a while!
When I got there, I remembered why it had been such a long time. The Riverwoods is the home of Tucanos, a Brazilian Churrasco. Churrasco, of course, is Portuguese for place-where-they-feed-you-until-you-explode. You sit at a table and a parade of meat begins, until suddenly it's been three hours and you can no longer find your feet. At this point, my husband will get up and shake it all down before a quick last round, a bit like topping off his gas tank. Tucanos is delicious.
Anyway, the smell is heavenly, and shooting downwind is… distracting.
In spite of that, Lindsey and Justin seemed to resist the temptation and we had a fantastic time taking their engagement photos. They even brought a change of clothes to mix it up a little, which always makes my day. To any future clients that are reading this- bringing two or even three or four changes of clothing can lend a lot of variety to a session. I highly recommend bringing at least a casual set of clothes as well as a more formal set. But hey, whatever floats your boat- the pictures should also reflect you!
(Photographers, like many other artists, often tend toward the clotheshorse-ish. Texture and shape and color in clothes can really bring a shoot to life. There’s also nothing better than a photo that really *looks* like someone – even if your five-year-old gets her picture taken with the bicycle helmet she wouldn’t take off for two weeks straight one summer, those seem to be everyone’s favorites later on.)
Gotta love the easy and natural expression here- and the gorgeous light!

I've said it before, I'll say it again. I LOVE color, and this red wall is to die for- such a nice, soothing shade.

When we decided to go shoot at the Riverwoods, I remembered this big tree, and thought it might be fun to incorporate it. I couldn't help but laugh when right at the beginning of the shoot Justin mentioned he'd love to see if we could get a picture of them in a tree somewhere. Why yes. We can.

We didn't take as many formal outfit shots. They both said they liked the casual outfits a lot better. I gotta say though, I liked the blues.... blues all over in this picture.

Can't you just feel the happiness jumping out at you here?

Take a look at some more of my favorites from their shoot at the full gallery here.
I love me some sunflares.

Natalie and David

We met Natalie and David at the Provo Bridal Fair in February- their wedding is in May (a busy month- I have six weddings already for May), so it was definitely time to get engagement photos ready for the announcement. Both Natalie and David are huge Real Salt Lake fans, and so it was fun that they brought their jerseys and a soccer ball to personalize their session with an outfit change that highlighted a bit of who they are.





Click here to see more photos of Natalie and David.

Rebecca and Kimball

Rebecca and Kimball are friends of Jacob and Laura Parry, whose wedding I shot last year, and I was pleased when they decided to ask me to shoot their engagement photos. They are both avid Call of Duty fans, and so they brought along their controllers to personalize the session a little bit. We had a ton of fun together, and laughed pretty much the entire time. (I love shooting happy people!) Rebecca and Kimball are both pretty goofy people, and so we got some super silly and fun pictures, along with a lot of traditional style photography. We shot in downtown Salt Lake City, and found a lot of new fun locations as we went around the city.

Take a look at more of their photos in the full gallery here.

Ian and Sara

I met Ian and Sara when I shot Ian's brother's wedding last summer, and so I was glad that they dropped me a line when they were looking for their own wedding photographer. We headed on down to downtown Salt Lake City for their engagement pictures, and found some really fun architectural stuff to incorporate into the photos. Ian and Sara are both really fun people (their wedding is mythology themed- stay tuned for photos, I have a feeling they will be awesome), and we had some beautiful weather for our session (in contrast to right now, just a day later- it's snowing like CRAZY!).






Ian and Sara and both big fans of Yoga- I am a big fan of taking pictures of people doing Yoga. :D


To see more from this shoot, click here for the full gallery.

Lexie and Greg

It's interesting to me that as I go back to locations I have shot at before that I will constantly find new angles and things to photograph that I previously had not even noticed, nevermind the fact that I had already been there a million times. I guess it's what keeps my job interesting... :)






To see more from this gallery, click here.

Amanda and George

It's interesting how things seem to go in cycles. Oftentimes I will have several clients in a row that for whatever reason all choose the same location or type of setting, which can be challenging to continue to find variety in the type of shots that we get. This engagement shoot was at what is turning out to be an extremely popular winter setting: our always-favorite Wheeler Farm. :)
A little ways into the session Amanda mentioned that while they decided to go for an outside setting, we probably could have gone to the library as well for their shoot- evidently a large majority of their dates occur there. They are both finishing up graduate school, and spend most of their "free" time studying together. In retrospect, the library might have been a safer choice for at least two reasons: the conspicuous absence of the marvelous aroma of outdoor pig pens, and walking conditions suitable for high heels. Amanda was awesome traversing the slightly treacherous and muddy walkways to get to the different spots at the farm we were shooting at, but it was touch and go a couple of different times. While warmish winter days are nicer to shoot in, ground that is defrosting can be problematic. Makes for some fun stories though...





To see more from the shoot, click here.

Tyler and Emily

I truly am addicted to color. My addiction becomes even more pronounced when it's winter, everything's dead, and it hasn't snowed for a while to at least make everything that beautiful, pristine white. When it's like this, I like to take my clients and head to places where I know I can get my color fix, winter or not. :D







To see more of Emily and Tyler's photos, click here.

Shelby and Steve

I love shooting outdoors. The light is gorgeous, you can get some breathtaking views, and there's plenty of fresh air. It's awesome. It can, however, present some challenges when the weather decides to change. When scheduling Shelby and Steve's engagement shoot it was a no-brainer that it would be outside. They both love to be out of doors. They hike, they camp, all that good stuff. So it was decided we'd meet in Highland and go to a couple of different spots that I had scouted out previously. There was one field in particular that I was extremely excited about. I figured it would be the ideal place to finish up and get some spectacular sunset shots. Then we showed up for the session and looked up at the sky.
Rolling in from the east was one solid mass of clouds, a precursor to what promised to be a really wicked snowstorm. We had checked the weather report and it promised us a lack of snow until sunset, so we crossed our fingers and started shooting. As the time passed, more and more of the nice blue sky became this blank, grey canvas. And then it started to snow.
At the end of our time together, we ended up with a lot of images that I could not have planned for, but were every bit as good as what I originally envisioned. As I said, I love shooting outside. It's always different than you imagine, but that's what makes it fun! :)



As an additional surprise from the day, I should mention that before the shoot Shelby and her fiancee had stated unequivocally that they didn't like kissing pictures, so we were to avoid taking any. They said maybe one or two on the wedding day. However, when the snow really started coming down and we had the big umbrella out I managed to convince them to try just one or two kissing shots. Guess which photo is Shelby's profile picture on Facebook. :)



Check out more photos of our winter adventure here.

Mike and Lindsey

For Christmas, Thomas and I decided to give his brother Michael a free photo shoot. Now, they wanted me to make very clear this is not an engagement shoot- they're just dating. :) So this is Mike and Lindsey's not-an-engagement-shoot-because-they're-just-dating session. It was a lot of fun; they're both fairly goofy people, and it was nice to just snap the pictures and watch them interact.










To see the rest of this gallery, click here.