Engagement Shots - Corey & Molly

I had an opportunity over the last two weekends to take some engagement pictures for some really good friends of mine.  They got engaged this summer and asked me if I'd do some engagement shots for them.
I happily took on the project, even though I've never really shot anything for other people before.  I immediately started searching the Internet trying to find ideas for engagement shots, poses, locations, etc that I could do with them. 

Normally, when I shoot, it is just of my wife or kid, so if I screw it up, I can always do it again the next day.  It's a little different when you're shooting for someone else, especially if there aren't many mutually convenient days to get together.  I was slightly less nervous for this shoot, since they were friends, because I knew if we didn't get them this week, I could do it another week.  But still, I wanted to try to get it done right the first time.

The first shoot was slightly impromptu because we decided to run out and get a few shots with the remaining light after my son's birthday party.  They came down for the party and as things were winding down, I noticed that we had some really good light outside.  We quickly drove over to a park that is close to our house and got this first set of pictures.

We really only had about 15 minutes before the sun dropped below the horizon and the light started to get really bad.  So, we tried to cram as many as we could into the short window before heading back home to hang out some more.

That night, we made plans to meet up again the following weekend and set aside an afternoon to try to get some more.

So, this last Sunday, I headed up to their town with the wife and baby in tow.  They have a big forest preserve close to their house, so that was the first location we hit up.  It has miles of walking paths, fields, trees and a lot of great areas to get some pictures.  I had a few pictures in mind that I really wanted to take.  Mostly involving sun flairs, back lighting and blown out highlights.  So, we went through a few fields that had tall prairie grass, weeds, and other various tall foliage to get some of the backlit shots.  We stopped by a few wood rail fences and tried to find other locations where the light was coming through the trees.

After getting a few shots I really liked at the forest preserve, we headed back into their town.  They have a nice little downtown area where I wanted to get some more pictures.  But, most of all, I wanted to get some shots at the train station and platform that run right through downtown.  So, after finding an area where there weren't too many people, I set up some gear and we got to work there as well.  After getting a few regular shots, a train pulled into the station.  An idea popped into my head that I really wanted to try.  I wanted to capture them standing on the platform with the train moving in the background.  I quickly tried one shot as the train was pulling away.  I looked at the screen on my camera, anticipating a great shot only to find out that I completely blew it.  The shot was completely overexposed and was just generally terrible.  Luckily, 5 minutes later, another train came through.  This time, I set up the camera, took a few test shots, got the settings the way I wanted and waited for the second train to start moving.  I got 2 shots off while the train was in motion and really liked the way they turned out.  The second picture I got right as the last car passed by, which exposed some of the town houses on the other side of the tracks, along with streaks of the train.
In hindsight, I would have sped up the shutter just a bit, so that you might be able to make out some of the train windows, but I still think those two shots were awesome.

Let me know what you think.

T.