Prepare to Engage!
Best practices for your engagement photoshoot to achieve and receive your dream photos!
The moment you had long envisioned finally happened - the person of your dreams said “yes!” or…you said “yes!” to the biggest question of all - “Will you marry me!” and now, you and your partner are all things planning.
The venue, the cake, should you invite loud and politically charged uncle Tim? OH yeah, the photographer! Well if you are hiring a wedding photographer, you should probably get some engagement photos too for the invites and the social media validation points! Should be easy right? You just show up, the photographer handles everything, and you + your life partner just smooch and act cute; EASY!
Well…..about that……
“Being a candid, emotive human isnt easy”
Speaking as an engagement / wedding photographer and videographer, I see a wide range of emotional reactions through my lens. Some couples are just NATURALS! Bubbly, cute, totally romantic and basically righteous of a nauseating Hallmark movie. They set the bar so high that it puts pressure on everyone else! Then you have most other couples, you know, the “normal” folks - they do not really love having their photos taken, or they are not totally comfortable with PDA, but they or their partner want those engagement photos! Being a candid, emotive human isnt easy! So what to do? Surely the photographer will just guide them through it all!
While certainly an element of my job IS in fact to help my couples feel relaxed, in the flow, and at ease, I am just one human. I can only make so many “dad jokes” to try to make a natural laugh occur, or show you so many Pinterest boards on how to dip your partner before the rest lies with you. Beyond my ability to frame, lens, pose, capture, and edit a good engagement photo, is the nearly intangible experience of working with me. Like any relationship we have with others in this world, we have to gel on some level to reach our goals. So what can you and your partner do to help the photo process go as near to your The Notebook-perfect goals as possible?
Be yourselves!
If you are booking your engagement photo session with me (and I am sure with most photogs too) I will ask you a few simple questions that will help you and your partner prepare - and they are great to bare in mind, even if you are not even close to ready to book.
Do you have an inspiration board?
This does not have to be a fully fleshed out, 6 page Pinterest board, but Keep in mind that I do not know what is in your mind! Help me, help you, and show me how you want your photos to turn out. Keep in mind, this is an inspiration board, not a hard and fast promise that your photos will perfectly match the sample images - the inspos you show me could have come from a multi-million dollar perfume ad at the base of a waterfall in Iceland. What I can promise is my best attempt to help achieve that mood, the feel of the image rather.Be yourselves!
Being photographed while showing intimacy with your partner, in public can feel weird, I get it! I am with you 100%. As someone who is predominantly behind the camera, I personally do not enjoy being photographed all that much myself. However, this is one of those moments where the more you let go of your mental hang-ups, the better the results will be. Are you and your partner pretty silly and outrageous, SHOW ME! Let’s do that awkward 80s JC-Penny’s pose! You do not have to use it for your invites, but capturing that energy in this part of your lives will last forever. Be yourselves!There are always limits.
Often times, a couple will come to me with the inspiration board they found on Instagram, it’s gorgeous! They are ready to be in-front of the camera, and have some PDA moments that will last a lifetime, woohoo! BUT, it is February, in Portland…. so it’s raining nonstop, and dark out at 4:50pm.
Sometimes planning a great shoot is about knowing the limits and working within those limits. I want you to have those stellar photos to match the Romanticy, Book-Tok cover image you found online, but you are not able or willing to travel outside the city, or wait for a dazzling spring sunset? There is only so much I can do. Finding some level of compensation when necessary can go miles in helping set a more realistic experience and outcome.Know your comfort!
While I never insist that a couple display affection; I will always ask if they are comfortable kissing at the location of our shoot. I do not want to assume that this is an implied action that will take place, but also it helps to discuss this with your partner before heading into the shoot. Having an expectation for your personal level of intimacy in public can smooth things out for the shoot! Set boundaries with your photographer ahead of time if it’s something you feel will make you or your partner uncomfortable too.
Hopefully this blog has given you a few ideas on how to best approach your engagement photo shoot! I know there is more I could say in detail but in the interest of not keeping you trapped reading for much longer, I will list them out quickly for you here!
Work with me to plan the location! Chances are I know the spot, how the light effects it, how busy it is, if there are ugly sight lines etc!
Understand the environment! If you want to plan this for at 5pm in March, you could be cold!
Please do not bring your friend who is “just going to capture BTS on their phone,” it’s distracting, a bit rude and diminishes the experience / environment I am trying to create.
Respect the time - I often am happy to push a few minutes because the sun is just about to hit the water, but please respect your photographers time. In some cases, those extra 10 minutes amounts to 200 plus more images that need to be processed.