My sister Glynis and Kyle have been dating for a very long time now and are going to be married early next year. They asked me if I’d take their engagement pictures for them and I was thrilled to do it. This was my first engagement session so was a bit of a learning experience. For the occasion I borrowed a full-frame Canon 5D camera from my good friend Ron. The quality that comes out of the 5D is something that needs to be seen to be believed. I absolute love the images it produces compared to my Canon 50D.
We started out North of 680 along the river in a park I found saw while shooting a Corvette shoot earlier this year. It was overcast, and threatening rain but we had lots of beautiful earth tones from the Fall season.
For our first shots, we walked to a small bridge. I used a technique popularized by Ryan Brenizer and aptly named the “Brenizer Method”. It is a method of producing a wide angle looking shot with a much longer lens by stitching multiple shots together. For this image I only used 20 shots but you can sometimes do as much as 60-80 shots for this method! It really produces a truly unique image. A lens capable of creating this shot in a single capture would be immensely expensive!
Next, we did a few shots on the bridge then walked into a lightly wooded area. They were much more comfortable being themselves with me at a distance so I put my telephoto lens on and asked them to walk to the end of the path near the bridge and to walk for me. Shooting wide open gave me a very nicely blurred foreground and background to isolate them in the frame.
The wind was a bit much to use an umbrella on a stand without an assistant so for the above shots I just used fill flash with a gel to give a nice color to their skin. Next we went around to the opposite side of the bridge where there was a bit of a wind break. I setup an umbrella here and took a shot of them together with the background slightly underexposed to give me more saturation.
Next, we packed up in my truck and headed downtown. For our first shot I wanted them to stand in a doorway on the side of a brick building with a nice orange light lighting it but Kyle noticed a foul odor coming from the corner so we decided that wasn’t the best location! Instead we went up the street slightly and I shot a wide frame with a 19-35 lens which I also borrowed from Ron.
Next we went up the street to a bus stop and I took a few shots there as well. I liked this one the most. The shelter provided front light from the overcast sky and gave us very nice looking light without any extra gear. We also had a few gentlemen standing behind us for comic relief!
We walked back up 16th and I saw this alcove near the bank. I liked the lighting we were getting there. Glynis likes to punch Kyle and make him flinch so I thought it would make a great picture to really show their relationship! They had a lot of fun with these more candidly done photos.
It was almost time to finish up but I wanted a few more shots. We walked around the block to an alley and I positioned them just inside a parking garage for some nice looking ambient light. I also liked the “No Loitering” sign. After getting a few shots I backed up and got a few as they were just being themselves.
And lastly, I took them over to a stair way in the side of the alley and got a few more shots while they did their best to ignore that I was there!
I had a lot of fun with this first engagement session. So, thanks to Kyle and Glynis for asking me to shoot it for them and to give me the awesome experience!