Every so often we get a chance to shoot an engagement session with a really creative and fun couple. Ailen and Shawn hired us to shoot their wedding in August at the Antrim 1844 Country House hotel in Taneytown, MD, but first wanted to have an engagement photo session with Mark Lovett Photography. These guys really put a lot of effort into this esession. Not only did they drive over an hour one way to work with us, but they came dressed to kill with lots of cool props to use in the shoot. They even brought us a box of chocolate as a gift!
These guys are so nice and fun to work with that I couldn’t resist going the extra mile for them too. I extended our photo session time and set up, and captured many very special moments managing accumulate a vast quantity of amazing photos! Ailen brought two gorgeous lacey dresses and many other vintage items to help create some atmosphere. Shawn came sporting a cool vintage hat, suspender pants, and an outfit that reminds me of the 1920’s.
I picked a special location close to us in Gaithersburg, MD that I love and we just had a great time! I decided to go for a soft natural look for these images and I shot as wide open as possible, usually about f2, using a favorite long portrait lens. As you may know, it can be a challenge getting faces in focus shooting in this manner, but I’m good at it now, I was very careful and my hit rate turned out high. As a result, we got very soft, out-of-focus backgrounds (photographers call that bokeh) with the couple in sharp focus. Ailen is quite a bit shorter than Shawn so I took occasional advantage of standing her on short tree stumps to bring their faces closer to the same level.
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