after my first successful test shoot, i was invited to second shoot the engagement session of my good friends Lindsey & Michael in DTLA.
here are a few of my favorite captures from the shoot (and some of the reasons why i love shooting film so much):
We originally wanted to shoot our engagement photos in Santa Monica, retracing the steps of our first date, but then we learned of all the restrictions that come with shooting on the Promenade and on the pier and realized that there’d be tons of people there and it’d be windy so we scrapped that plan and went Downtown. Downtown is awesome and beautiful and anyway we spend more time there than in Santa Monica. We both really like it and I think it reflects our personalities in the sense that we feel just as comfortable going to divey places like La Cita or Bar 107 as we do Patina and Drago.
We started by the Central Library on the day CicLAvia was happening but it was supposed to be over by the time we made it out there. Unfortunately it wasn’t, so Downtown was a disaster. We got stuck in crazy traffic thanks to all the street closures so it took us 40 minutes to go two miles and Lindsey was freaking out because we were late to our appointment. But once we got to the library everything was fine because our photographer was late, too. The library itself was closed but we were able to get some nice shots of it in the background. The balloons were really our only props; we wanted to incorporate a little bit of the whimsy from Up in our photos. Elan got some nice shots in the courtyard of that fossil thing and the reflecting water.
From there we walked to Angel’s Flight and took some photos while riding the world’s shortest (and scariest?) railroad. Even though it’s only about a 70 second ride, 69 of those seconds are terrifying; the car is super rickety and jerks and screeches and you can see the cables that are pulling it start wobbling around and you feel like the thing might snap off and send you careening downhill any second. But for a thing built in 1901 that costs a quarter to ride WHAT DO YOU EXPECT??
After that it was on to Disney Hall for the “fancy” part of our shoot. In most of the engagement shoots I’ve seen, when it’s time for the second outfit the guy usually cops out and takes off/puts on a jacket or puts on a tie. (The girl tends to go all out, but then, I was told that engagement shoots are more about the girl anyway and that the dude is more an accessory than anything else.) I wasn’t thrilled about having to get down to my underwear in the backseat of my car, but I did it FOR LOVE. (And also because I hate feeling like a schlub next to Lindz.) Those photos of us looking fancy are some of my favorites.
So that’s it for photos… FOR NOW.
(Source: heartshoppe)
