Engagements: Natalie and Steven

Another Engagement session!  Yes, 'tis the season of Spring love.

I like to tell the engaged couple that our session is just "supervised flirting" and they are responsible for being playful and making each other laugh.   Natalie and Steven were quite cute with it. They flirted and played all throughout City Creek and the Gallivan Center downtown.  And it was a beautiful, beautiful day.

 

  

Going through so many engagement sessions this month, we plan to announce a special tomorrow!  Keep your eyes open, we will have an 80% discount for engagement sessions scheduled for the week of May 18!  Only those 7 days.  We will have lots of playful photos, and we are excited for this whirlwind week.  Check back tomorrow for details :)

And congratulations Natalie and Steven!

Engagements - Downtown Salt Lake

I had a lot of fun working with Kenzie and Alex.  It was the evening after our most recent bridal show, so an extremely long day.  We were sleep deprived and completely drained of energy from talking to people all day.  But what an INCREDIBLE day!  Then Kenzie and Alex show up with these beautiful smiling faces and all the energy came back!  It was a whirlwind hour full of enthusiasm, we just ran around downtown (started at the Capitol  and ended at the Gallivan Center).

 

One of my favorite things about shooting downtown is that it's no problem if we go past sunset!  There are plenty of other lights to play with.  We bring off camera flashes, of course, but it's the lights in the background that make the night photos interesting.

Click here to check out more of Kenzie and Alex's engagement photos

Engagements - Becca and Todd

Engagements at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and surrounding areas.  Becca and Todd were delightful - they were dancing and laughing... made me smile throughout the whole session.  If we can all be happy, photoshoots are fun!  It doesn't even feel like work.

 

Here's a fun story:  These two met online (rather common for many of the couples I come across these days!) and there first date was ... wait for it ... to the DMV.  They renewed their licenses together at the start of the relationship.  I think that's kind of adorable!

 

Downtown Salt Lake Engagements - Jordyn & Colton

 

This photo with the blue wall looked AMAZING printed on metal!  I feel like they should be fashion models here...  Adorable :)

 

City Creek was a really fun environment to shoot!  There was a cute old security guard who insisted we needed to stick around an extra 15 minutes because there was going to be FIRE coming out of the fountain.  (you can see in the photo above that it wasn't that exciting...  but it made me smile!)

This photo above is one of my favorites because I feel like I caught Jordyn and Colton on a date, not just a photoshoot.  Like they happened to be enjoying the atmosphere around City Creek, and they look like they were having fun.  I like to tell my clients that engagement photos are just supervised flirting.  Yes, I will give some direction, but mostly if you can just make each other laugh and enjoy the evening, everyone will be happier! I love seeing moments like these :)

 

I think this is the first engagement shoot I've ever done with a videographer there, but I've got to tell you - I would trust Chris McClain with my life.  Or my camera.  Or photos... Something like that!  It was wonderful to work as a team, his energy was so encouraging and positive.  Some photographers have horror stories about the video guy getting in the way, but in all the times I've worked with Chris, he's been amazing.

Salt Lake Engagement Photos - Kiera & Brandon

  A walk around downtown Salt Lake City with Kiera and Brandon!  I always recommend each couple brings a few outfits, and with each outfit change  I got more and more impressed.  I secretly wish that I could own wearing those pants!  ...and the yellow skirt... and the purple shoes...  But at least Kiera looked amazing in them!

I love how sweetly they were looking at each other here:

And it was a cold day!  Seriously guys, I was wearing a pea coat.  But these two just kept smiling, you can't even tell from the photos.  I keep thinking I should set a soundtrack to each photoshoot I do.  This one would definitely be "I've got my love to keep me warm" by Billie Holiday

 

I want to put this photo in a magazine somewhere.  Or maybe on my wall.  We could do that too!

 

Purple shoes... awesome, right???

I hope these two keep smiling like this for the rest of their lives!  Oh, how I love working with happy people.  And we'll be shooting the wedding in a couple weeks in Los Angeles! California, here we come.

New York City - Central Park

A new adventure, a chance to meet new people, see new places, take some awesome photos, and re-discover myself.  Here's the plan:

New York City this weekend, staying with my older sister Jasmine, traveling with my sister-in-law Annie, lots and lots of walking, a little bit of shopping, and a chance to feel the energy of a new city.  It is, after all, a little bit different than Salt Lake!

This evening, I leave for Ireland, where I'll travel around with Annie (luckily she's been there before) and see Dublin, Galway, and some other places I've never heard of.  But I've seen P.S. I Love You, so I know it will be absolutely beautiful!  (In case any clarification was needed, I'm talking about the countryside, not the men.)

After Ireland, I say goodbye to Annie and meet Thomas in London for a couple days, then on to Madrid for a week and Holland for a few days and an incredible wedding.  What a month we have planned!  You will not be able to reach me via phone over the next few weeks, but feel free to email. And I'll be back home at the end of May.

Here's part I from my trip - Central Park and the New York Skyline.  Well, not really the skyline, but some part of it - tall buildings and the sky.  Does that count?

I walked by the bridge several times and I just loved the way the light hit it this afternoon.  I took a nap on the other side - if you look really closely, there are some giant rocks.  Actually quite comfortable!  What I've thought was most interesting about New York, though, is how I can sit and have hundreds of people around me and still feel alone.  Because people are always around, everyone's developed a way of going about their lives anyway.  Street music, families playing, couples practicing martial arts, people napping, walking, jogging, sitting...  And yet it's as if I was there as an audience member, not part of the play.  There is such an amazing energy when that many people come together, but everyone has their own story, their own purpose to their day.  Fascinating.

One of my favorite movies is "Elf," and I discovered that his advice is true "Careful! The yellow ones don't stop!" ^

And the view from the park at night.  If I could take awesome night shots like this all day, I would be very happy (hrmmm... that doesn't make much sense, does it?)

So thank you New York for a new perspective and a new experience.  And for taking care of my sister, glad I got to see Jasmine too.

San Diego Skyline

 

I spent the afternoon of Day 2 in San Diego at  a beach, sitting, sleeping, and writing things in the sand.  Oh, how I would love to be on the beach right now!  Jealous seemed like the correct word to write :)  I first tried writing them with my toe, but the water kept beating me to it and washing the words away.  So I walked and walked and walked looking for a big stick.  And I couldn't find one anywhere!  Then Justin suggested a lightstand - turns out camera equipment has multiple purposes!

  

It was perfect :)

 

And the working part of the day - corporate photos.  Jeremy's business partner, Nate, flew in that morning so he could join us for photoshoot #2.  Nate has spent the last year or so traveling around the country - a couple weeks here, a couple weeks there (California, Colorado, Utah, Florida and a few other places) and has finally settled back in San Diego with a permanent address.  Most of the work they do is online anyway, or traveling to meet with clients in other states, so being able to move around without interrupting the business is pretty cool.  I love the perspective both of these guys have on life and people, though.  They make a huge effort to understand people and it shows in the relationships they have, even while not staying in one place for very long.  You can still connect with people and make a difference.  Everyone travels for different reasons, and I've loved the experiences I've been able to have traveling recently - new people, new places, new experiences.  I've gone out of the state at least once every month since November, and this will continue for almost a whole year.  I'm excited to see the connections I can make as this continues!

Nate and Jeremy run two businesses together, SpireWave and Mind Breakthrough.  (The SpireWave website is about to be relaunched, but until then, you can read a little bit about it on Jeremy's website here)

 

 

I loved the view of this skyline with the water.  For you photographers interested in the specs on this one below, I had one speedlight on my camera, two behind them for backlight, and one from the front right with a soft box. I used pocketwizards to trigger, and shot it at 1/15 sec, f/3.2, ISO 640.  Most importantly, though, I called ahead to make sure they'd turn all the lights on for the office buildings in the background ;)

And I hopped in one at the end - thanks Justin for taking the picture!

Vegas, baby!

I'm sorry to say that no real Vegas stories came out of my trip, not much exciting happened.  I've been to Vegas before with Thomas.  We loved the Cirque De Soleil show, but other than that, though the city was kind of tacky...  This trip however, I saw it through a photographer's eyes.  And I'm now happy to report that it is not just tacky, but it is delightfully tacky.  The lights, the water, the color... all of that combines for some amazing photos!!

These photos below are from the Beatles Cirque Du Soleil show - I've never seen it, but I would LOVE to go there this year!!  At least the lights were cool.

Photos tomorrow from San Diego - with Jeremy, the man who made this trip possible.

McDougal Family

  I was so happy to get to shoot the McDougals and their extended family the Eichers.  Since shooting Holli and David's wedding earlier this year, we've become really good friends.  We've even got a regular pinochle game going.  What is pinochle you say?  Only the greatest old-person card game ever! Seriously, Thomas and I are completely addicted, and we were happy when we found another couple to share our nerdiness with.

I'm getting distracted though- back to the photos!

This fall was so awesome!  The colors on the trees just kept sticking around, even after we started to get some snow...

  

Whipped cream + tiny cookies + hot chocolate on a cold day=  yum.

    

Snowball fight!