We met up with Clare and Vern in Falcon last night for their engagement portraits. (If they look familiar, it’s because they were finalists in our contest last February.) They are the biggest troopers! They flew into Denver from California that afternoon (flying and pictures on the same day is some pretty pro stuff)!

I’m beginning to understand why so few couples pick the Falcon/Peyton area for their engagement shoots, even though it’s my favorite…because people are crazy here. The last time I was shooting out there (Justine’s senior portraits) we were interrogated by the woman that was pretty sure we were terrorists. This time we had the guy that wanted to chat with us/spy on us from his barn and a woman that thought we were standing in her dirt driveway with balloons and enough camera equipment to finance a small army in order to “rob her blind.”

Now, I’m starting to get used to this kind of embarrassment, harassment, and general insanity…but I’m pretty sure I’m the only one. Sorry, Clare and Vern, for any long-lasting emotional trauma! The pictures were totally worth it!

They were wearing cowboy boots. It was AWESOME!

Ready for my favorite?

I love me some gettin’ cozy in greenery pictures:

Any kind of weather brings pros and cons. If it’s overcast, you get easy lighting from any angle, but no cool backlit stuff. If it’s rainy in the afternoon, you can break out adorable umbrellas and boots and you’re probably going to have a fantastic sunset (in Colorado Springs, at least)! Yesterday we had windy. It’s a pain for the couple to have their hair going everywhere, and we take 5 times as many shots as usual to be sure we have a usable number of shots without crazy windy hair…but you also get cool dress blowing action like this:

We’ve had several couples bring guitars to their engagement shoot (we love props!), so this time I wanted to try a few new poses. Lucky for me, Clare and Vern sat down in the sweetest pose all on their own!

(I am all about the birds in this next shot, but Nic isn’t. But he’s a party pooper like that.)

They are so cute!!

And as the evening ended…

Clare and Vern are completely sweet and down to earth. They are so easy to photograph, and we can’t wait for their September wedding!

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Some behind the scenes stuff…

Here’s a pretty flower I played around with while we waited for Clare and Vern to arrive. You gotta respect any naturally occurring flowers out here. They do not have much water to work with!

This next one I took of Nic to illustrate one of the biggest lessons a newbie portrait photographer must learn: you have to see the trees for the forest. A beautiful location in general (the “forest”) won’t make the picture great if you don’t know how to isolate the individual “trees” for the background of your shot. And just as importantly, an ugly overall location can have great individual “trees” when isolated from the right angle with the right lens:

And here’s me with my favorite lens shooting my favorite shot from the evening. I’ve waxed poetic about my 70-200 f/2.8 IS lens before, but I need to sing its praises again. This is THE lens I recommend pinching pennies for if you’re starting out in weddings/portraits (weddings in particular).

And not just because it is giant and looks like a small missile launcher. Last night was a very dark evening. We had expected the clouds to blow over and leave us with sun and stunning clouds (as usually happens when we have 4pm showers), but the big clouds stayed around and kept things dark. But the f/2.8 max aperture and image stabilization allowed me to keep my ISO relatively low. So when Vern asked “Is this light okay?” I was able to answer “Yep–it’s great!”

You can also see me sporting my new Canon hand strap in that shot. I carry two cameras plus a shoot sac at weddings and I finally said “enough!” Not all of that gear can hang off my neck/shoulders all day. I got two wrist straps to try out, and the Canon one is by far the best. It’s awesome and I love it. I recommend keeping a neck strap on there, though–otherwise changing lenses gets a little crazy.

While I’m singing the praises of objects in that shot, I should mention the shoes. They’re Keens, and I love them like I love Will. I wear them to almost all of our portrait/engagement shoots. Unless you have weird feet, though, you’ll need to buy different insoles. The ones it comes with are made for people with crazy insteps. (And this isn’t just me saying this–the girls at REI say it, too.)