Here’s another awesome Fall engagement session for a couple that we will be photographing their wedding next year! We went with a little rustic elegance at one of the best parks for engagement photos in Golden, Colorado. Katie & Ben have romance down! These two had a great time expressing their love and I’m so looking forward to their Spring wedding!
‘Tis the season for engagements! If you got engaged over the holidays and are looking at where to start with the wedding planning process one of the funnest things to do is a photography session! It commemorates the moment and gives you some amazing photos to share with the world your love of each other. It’s also a great way to try out a photographer that you are considering for your wedding coverage. Give us a call, we still have some p[rime dates in 2020 available.
With all of the relatives in town for the holidays you may be thinking that you’d like to take a group photo of everyone in the family! So if you can’t hire a professional either due to cost or availability the next best thing is doing it yourself! Here are some quick tips to help make your photo the best that it can be! And with a bunch of you getting the new iphone for Christmas you might want to even try this with your phones!
1.) Prepare! – Scout out the best location to do the photo ahead of time. Make sure your batteries are charged and your lenses are cleaned (including your phone lens)! It would be a real bummer if you couldn’t take the photo due to an empty battery or worse yet a big piece of dirt shows up in the middle of grandma’s face! Make sure everyone you want to be in the photo knows where and when you are taking it (I always ask them to be there 15-20 minutes earlier than needed to make room for late comers).
2.) Location – Make sure you choose the right spot for your photo. If you have to take the photo in the middle of the day scout out spots with open shade so that there are no harsh shadows and so people don’t have to squint in the photos. Make sure there are no distractions in the background such as signs, cars, etc. Or a window behind the group indoors where a flash can bounce back into the camera. If you are indoors I would avoid using a flash on your cell phone camera for the photo if at all possible. The low light capabilities are getting better on phones, but the flash settings are not.
3.) Take Multiple Shots! – One way to try and avoid getting eyes closed or people not looking at the camera is to take a lot of photos. The more you take the more chances you have for a good one. And trust me if you are also going to set the timer so that you can be in it you will more than likely have to take a few to get a good one! A wireless handheld remote for also really helps for this! Do not use the digital zoom feature on a cell phone because the photo will be too grainy, rather than using the zoom position yourself in a way that puts the entire group in the frame.
4.) Use a tripod – Set your camera up on your tripod so that’s ready to take the shot in terms of framing, settings and focus and then it will be ready at an instant when you get the group looking just right to capture the moment. It’s important to get the attention of your subjects early so that you can get them posed and take the photo quickly especially if you are working with short attention spans, especially those of children. Tripods also help prevent camera shake and keep the focus sharp!
5.) Posing – You want to make sure that you can see everyone. Taller people should be in the back and shorter in the middle or front. I like to put people in between the “V” of the people in front of them and ask everyone to make sure that they can see me because if they can’t see me I can’t see them. Try to compose in a triangle composition with the tallest members in the middle. When photographing a large family try to keep immediate families near each other, spouses and kids, etc. People also look better slightly angled (not straight on) so I typically have the people turn slightly into the person next to them and have them either put their hands in their pocket or on their hip for women. Before releasing the shutter take one last look over through the camera to make sure you can see everyone. And if the group is really large you might want to consider taking the photo from a higher perspective either from a balcony or ladder.
Best wishes and happy portrait taking!
I had a really busy Fall with a ton of bookings already for 2020 wedding couples which kept me busy doing engagement portraits while the weather was nice. I love doing engagement photos! It’s a great way to get to know the couple and how they photograph and it also allows me to find new and different spots to take photos! This location was one I had covered a previous small/elopement wedding at close to Denver and has an amazing mountain view! Rachel & Kyle will be tying the knot this Spring at one of our favorite venues, Willow Ridge Manor! Since they will have more of a red rock look to their wedding photos we were going for something with more pine trees and a view of the mountain range and this location just fit the bill! It’s the perfect way to share their new home off to all of their Chicago friends and family.
Very much looking forward to working with this laid back outdoorsy couple for their big day next year! Enjoy their romantic engagement photos below!
I photographed this lovely dusk maternity session with Becky and her family at the end of Summer. She was looking for a location that showed off the entire mountain range along with a lake in the background close to her home. Standley Lake checked all of the boxes for what she wanted. It had been a few years since I’ve taken a portrait session here. It was great getting back to this amazing spot. There had been so much rain over June and July and because of that the lake was so high that there wasn’t a beach that we could do photos on. Even though I was disappointed about a lack of a beach the location itself was still wonderful! It has a beautiful unobstructed view of the full mountain range and says “Colorado” in every sense of the word. We got some amazingly adorable photos with the kids and I was very happy with the results! Stay tuned for when I post some images from the newborn session!
Senior portrait season is pretty much over for the year… yeah, we may get one or two that still have a later yearbook deadline date or someone who never got their photo taken, but would like to have something before their commencement ceremony, but otherwise it’s over. I thought I would post a few of this Brighton High School’s senior session. We did an early morning session just a week before they were due, he was a great subject and I had an awesome time photographing him! Hope these will be some great memories for the years to come! Enjoy!
I’m a little behind again posting other types of portrait sessions that we’ve been busy doing… Senior portrait season is winding to a close now so I’ll be sharing a little bit of my work with all of you! This handsome young man is Connar! I met his mother over 12 years ago when she was working an Arbonne business and was doing bridal shows with me. She did the make-up for all the bridesmaids in my wedding and we’ve stayed in contact through Facebook all these years. She’s an amazingly creative person who created a business painting kitchen cabinets and also restoring or re-creating furniture. Anyways, her son is doing his senior year at Littleton High School and needed to do his senior photos. We had a great time doing these right before the leaves started turning and the weather was still warm. Check them out!
Love has no boundaries…. as depicted by Arthur & Tyler’s love for each other. This same sex couple will be sharing their wedding vows next Summer at Willow Ridge Manor and we’re so excited to be photographing it, along with my husband providing their musical entertainment via his DJ business. I got to spend an beautiful Summer evening with them strolling around downtown to do these urban engagement photos for them. Since their venue has a completely different feel to it we decided to focus more on the city that they live in. I love Denver! It keeps changing and there’s always new places for me to take photographs at…. I remember when I first moved here (over 20 years ago). The area around Union Station used to be pretty much a quiet spot without a lot of activity. You could get get a landscape photo of Denver’s skyline from the same place I took the last two photos in this post now there’s nothing but high rises there and it’s always full of people. Progress… it changes things. In this case for the better as I’m so happy that people in love can get married now no matter who they are! Looking forward to celebrating your big day with you both! ~Jamie
I’ve been working on so many weddings the last couple months that I’m a little behind with posting other photography sessions. Since this couple from the engagement/family portrait session I photographed at the end of July are getting married this weekend at Willow Ridge Manor; I thought I better post it! I had such a blast creating these images for this family, so much so that I’m really looking forward to covering their wedding! A lot of couples today enter into marriage already having children, so it just makes sense to include them in some of the engagement photos! Adalynn is such a cutie! Who wouldn’t want her in the photos! Lots of love to you both and we’ll see you this weekend!
It’s that time of year again! My phone and emails are non-stop right now with those high school seniors for the Class of 2020 who still need to get their senior portraits done before the yearbook due dates. Most of those dates are early or late Fall so please check with your child’s yearbook staff to find out when those dates are because I assure you a few classmates will wait until the absolute last week before even looking into getting them done and by that time it’s too late! For normal turnaround time we usually need a couple weeks to do the editing on them after they are taken and then you still need to go through them, pick one out for the yearbook and then we have to submit it for you! So if you are waiting for Fall colors, but your due date is for example October 20th I wouldn’t wait, I would schedule them as soon as possible as most of my weekend dates are already full! But no worries the sun doesn’t go down until almost 7:30pm we can still do them during the week after school. The best light is around 6pm anyways!
Isaac came to me as a referral from my husband’s other job. His mom, Christina and I talked over location ideas and what he was looking to have in the background of his photos. He requested mountains! So I had the perfect spot to recommend for this outdoorsy guy! Check these photos out, I love how the blue shirt brings out the blue colors in his eyes! Have a great senior year, Isaac!
Don’t you just love Spring? And Spring babies are the best! Fresh and new to the world and super adorable! This young man has three older siblings to help him on his way. I’m so excited to share images from Cole’s newborn portrait shoot! What a cutie! 
