Engagement photography - you can't predict the weather
You can't predict the British weather - we all know that. So for my latest engagement shoot in August, we had just had a bout of rain so I thought the best we could hope for was a dry day.
Our location was to be the meadows in The Happy Valley which, despite it being the end of Summer, still had long grass and a few meadow flowers. Well, it did the week before our shoot. We arrived just in time to see the tractor trundling along to the next field having just mown all the grass....
So while we got a beautiful, hot, sunny summer's day (and also the brightest afternoon for a while!), we didn't get the long flowing grass to sit and walk amongst! Short of getting the bride and groom to roll around in the freshly cut grass (not a good idea for any allergy sufferers out there!), we decided to keep walking to see if there was a spot the tractor of doom hadn't yet graced its presence with, while I had a little rethink about the style of our shoot and other spots within walking distance.
The couple were totally relaxed and it wasn't long before we found a spot up a hillside. And so the fun commenced.
The pair had just spent two years in Australia and the groom proposed on a beautiful beach a couple of hours before catching their flight to move back home.
Neither had spent any time in front of the camera before (not that you'd know), so we went for fun 'unposed posed' shots. I wanted to capture the connection between them and their laughter. They bickered and laughed like they'd been married for years - I was chuckling the entire time and have not smiled so much during an edit. You can clearly see the love between them.
So while we can't predict the weather and I would always suggest keeping an eye on your favourite locations, you're often thrown a curveball - there was no way of knowing the grass would be mown that particular morning.
So the key is flexibility, and of course, knowing how to laugh...
