all the standard images

Oh boy…I am excited to be posting today. As I’ve been going down my checklist of sessions to process and post, I was really looking forward to this one. This is Olivia and Mac’s engagement session, which we shot back in mid-May at the K-State Botanical Gardens. Olivia is the brave soul that hired me to shoot her wedding before I had ever shot anything wedding-related. Since then, I’ve been assisting Alan Honey at a number of weddings, and this weekend I’ll be working for another good friend of mine, Nicole Coleman of Nicoleman Photography, second shooting for her. I still have a bunch of Alan’s weddings left to assist at this summer as well, but Olivia’s will be my first solo wedding.

As (hopefully!) every wedding photographer would tell you, their first solo wedding is probably their most terrifying, their most sleep robbing, their most nerve wracking. I’m sure mine will be the same, but after this engagement session, I am super excited to be there for them!

This, incidentally, is the best reason to get an engagement session done if you’re planning a wedding: if you and your photographer have a good relationship, that will make the day of the wedding go all that much more smoothly. It’s tough to develop that relationship, that trust, if the first time you’re in front of your photographer’s lens is the big day. An engagement session allows you to get to know each other, to discuss your style, what you’d like to see, and to allow your photographer the chance to earn your trust ahead of time.

Back to the session: I knew I was in for a great day when I got there and discovered just about the most beautiful day ever.

This is where Olivia really wanted to get married, but when she called to find out if it was available, she was told that they don’t schedule any events here during football home games. So, we planned to do her engagement pictures here, even though they said it was the same day as graduation and that the grounds would probably be full of people. We decided to risk it and go ahead with the shoot.

We hardly saw another soul the whole time we were there.

Soon after Olivia and Mac showed up, we had a great time exploring the grounds and getting comfortable with each other. And let me tell you, they wasted no time getting comfortable.

Look at how easy these two are on the eyes!

They really wanted to make sure that we were able to make use of the fountain, and who am I to say no?

We made good use of the rest of the grounds and flora as well.

We also made good use of my Polaroid.

They were such an awesome couple to work with. Here’s a few more of my favorites:

I just love the feeling of this last one:

Olivia and Mac, thanks for such an incredible session! I had a blast, and I am just jazzed about your wedding in September!

of a patch of little purple flowers in our front yard.

And of a new blog theme (feed readers, click here to come see!) that allows me to post bigger pictures. I’ll be updating older posts with bigger pictures as I have time, so make sure to come back to see those as well.

Me likey.

But what do you think?

ISO 100, 1/80s, f2.8, 50mm

Because death is not goodbye.

ISO 100, 1/40s, f1.8, 50mm