Just for Fun No C&C will be given: Engagement Session

I love the building where my studio is located. Lots of variety for backgrounds without leaving home! They had so much fun aside from telling me how unphotogenic they are but then when then saw these, they changed their perspective. Yay!







Yes, the one below is totally blown out. I was shooting from below with the 135 2.0 looking into the clouds above - sometimes the rules are meant to be broken. I and they love this one.

I love the 3rd one too!

Kathy,

A couple of thoughts, the background is distracting. However, it would seem to me that an 'engagement session' would be capturing the couple expressing the event. None of the photos show the emotion of being 'engaged'. To me these are poses for the camera, they do not display the emotion of "LOVE". The 1st one comes close.

But again I'm not the expert on LOVE - LOL

Portrait session

That's an interesting thought, Bill,. The first is just depicting them having fun - they were posed back to back on a slatted bench. The original idea is that engagement photos were a portrait session of an engaged couple for putting an annoucement in the local paper. They don't do that in LA (actually, if you read the LA Times these days it's pretty thin). The middle one is an image they could use for the paper - if that was still done - and the blown away photo was the first one I shot to test the settings while they were telling me how unphotogenic they were. When I chimped my image to check the setting I was unhappy that the images I shot last were inside in the dark at 1600 iso so having the camera set at 2.0 and 1600 on a bright day can really screw up a good image. Lightroom and Photoshop salvaged the shot, much to my happiness.

They were pretty serious, this is what I am doing when they book a wedding with me - the real purpose is to test out how they will photograph on the big day. If they told me they never have taken a good photograph before and placed an order with me for the whole set of images, I guess then they're happy - me too. As Tina Turner said, what's love got to do with it?

Just wondering if the wardrobe was planned. I like to avoid white clothes, although at the wedding it is almost a given. You did well with the white here.

Actually, I told them to wear long sleeves, no writing on the shirts and to wear dark colors and to bring a few different tops. I got two white shirts.

Honestly, Kathy, I don't really know what to think. Your photo skills look just fine (and, hey, the guy is wearing a clean t-shirt). The guy's comb lines in that third shot, his barrio-macho expression and the low camera position, gives a bit of a gang portrait feeling.

But it's just the nature of these sessions that still throws me. Just last summer my wife and I encountered a photog shooting an "engagement" session. Frankly, I thought it was an asinine romantic fantasy to appease the girl (although it's probably a good bit of biz for wedding photogs). My wife thought it was "cute" but I did an Exorcist eye-roll. (I wanted to take this guy aside and tell him, "Hey, you don't have to put up with this just for sex, buddy!")

But I guess it's a generational thing. "In my day" there were no such "engagement" photo books. (Hell, I would have gone broke.) It also says something about the economy. I have to believe that with consumer credit tightening these frills will evaporate.

Funny you said that

I guess what is funny is that I have no photos of my first wedding - no album, not one picture (we eloped). My second, the proofs we had done were just perfect for my mini album that I did myself - film. The photographer is out of business so I don't even know if the negatives are around.

Actually, I include an engagement shoot when I book a wedding as a booking incentive. It gives me time to see how well they work with me so I can be prepared. I give them one print but it gives me additional products to sell. If they buy prints within two weeks of the session, they get a reduced price for buying them.

Kathy Rappaport said:

I love the building where my studio is located. Lots of variety for backgrounds without leaving home! They had so much fun aside from telling me how unphotogenic they are but then when then saw these, they changed their perspective. Yay!

Yes, the one below is totally blown out. I was shooting from below with the 135 2.0 looking into the clouds above - sometimes the rules are meant to be broken. I and they love this one.

Click to expand...

Kathy,

I take the pictures as a whole and love them. They tell the couple, yes you are great together and your plan to get me as your photographer will result in pictures that show you as you want.

This is a deal closing shoot. It does that. The pictures are not dreamy but easily accessible to these folk.

I did a perfect engagement shoot. Wonderful groups of happy friends, bride with flowers, family shots and the couple sublimely in love and then 2 weeks later the guy went to Washington and backed out! No after sales, LOL!

I'd bet on this couple!

Asher

BTW, In the first shot I'd consider blurring the window and so one would have a flipped L of the wall. Might be worth considering!