Say hello to Jo & Harry on our pre-meet

This is what to expect from meeting in person for what I call “a few photos”.

It’s an engagement shoot, but I don’t like to label it as such.

I want you to look forward to your photos together on your wedding and not worry about feeling comfortable. This is a great way for us to get to know each other and discus your day. Even if I’ve been to your venue before it’s lovely to walk around and explore with you both.

Prior to any of these photos, we had explored inside their venue (Holne Park House) for about 30 minutes.

We then walked around the grounds. 

So, let’s break down how these photos came about so you can have an idea yourself,

The first set of photos are simply along a pathway. I asked them to walk towards me and then look at each other. Easy right? Once they stopped, I asked Jo to pop her left hand on Harry’s chest. I noticed Harry’s right arm had nothing to do. It was nice to get one photo of them in this pose, but I quickly asked Harry to pop his right hand on her hip as I wanted them to get closer. We then played a bit of “Look at me, one of you look at me and switch”. I like to play with this a bit and hope that you mess it up. You may be overthinking everything at this point, but as soon as you do make a mistake you’ll laugh and smile at each other and realise that it doesn’t matter! And we end these with a kiss. This series of photos took around 30 seconds.

We then spoke a bit more about their day as we continued walking, never focusing conversation on taking their photos until we found a beautiful scene with a wooden bridge. Jo & Harry didn’t need much guidance here and you can clearly see they’re already coming out of their shells. I grabbed a quick establishing photo first which covers a wider scene and then went in closer for the kill! They were already Laughing and joking as they pretended to look at something in the distance, so I stayed quiet as I didn’t want to ruin the moment and then said, “When’s the photographer going to guide us!” which helped again to make them feel more conformable and loosen off with some light-hearted jokes. We then go into “Look at each other, kiss and a kiss on the forehead”.

I decided that the same bridge was a great spot for what I call “the leans” It’s a chilled action instruction sequence that I love! If this was on their wedding day, I would find a wider spot and have only Harry leaning against a wall as I like the bride to be further away and leaning in your wedding dress doesn’t always look good. I asked her to walk towards him; this is great way to show of your dress drape from the side. They needed even less guidance once they made contact. The photos speak for themselves. All these bridge photos probably took about a minute.

We walked; we talked and came across a cute little bridge with a small waterfall behind it. I couldn’t resist and admittedly I gave more guidance on this one as I wanted to get that waterfall in the frame. I stood exactly where Harry is on the bridge and asked him to stand here facing each other. Why put Harry there? He’s taller and I knew he’d be on the outside of the frame. It would look a little strange the other way round. We started with her hands behind his neck and then I showed her another little pose with her elbow tucked into him. In my opinion the first photo doesn’t work very well. In photography you try to avoid 90-degree elbows that are horizontal from the shoulder and vertical from the elbow across the frame. Maybe it’s just my perfectionist way, but you’ll see we quickly resolved this by asking Jo to lean her head on Harry’s chest which brings her in closer. We joke a little about how Harry was being a T800 (Terminator film quote) And went into looking at each other and so on. 

Next, we found a patch of light within a dirt path leading through the trees. I rather let them do there own thing at this point as they were becoming playful and cute. Of course, as long as Harry didn’t drop Jo in the brook! This scene had brilliant lighting, and I could frame the photos with the surrounding tree branches.

We explored a kid’s pirate ship! I grabbed a candid of them walking onto it. Another cute one of them from below and then I made my way up to them. I saw an ideal spot for a sneaky lean in kiss. The mast of the ship. Simple instructions “lean in for a kiss from either side of the mast” and we achieved these adorable photos. We finished this area off with big Harry struggling to get back onto the main deck. Love it.

Walking back to the main house we got a couple of venue establishing photos. These will work much better on their wedding day as their clothing will make them pop from the image. You’ll notice I do grab wider scenes like this, but I am very much more a portrait photographer at heart when I take you both away. Lastly, a love seat. I find these a great way to focus on each individual. We finish with a kiss and as they went in for that kiss, we capture Jo smiling. 

I know this is very detailed. But if you read all of this page you must be seriously considering me as your wedding photographer, so thank you very much. I want you to have an insight in how I work. Maybe I should just shove a 360-action camera onto my professional camera!

I’ll always take your photos in a relaxed manner. Never making a song and dance about anything. For these, I had one camera and a 50mm prime lens to hand. The time we were actually taking photos was probably in total of 8 minutes. But we’ll casually walk and talk about all sorts of things. My priority will always be for you to be comfortable and enjoy your time without me taking up too much of it. On your wedding day I do take more photos of you both walking from locations and will let you both speak amongst yourselves more. This is likely the first time you’re away from your guests and able to speak with each other alone as newly weds.