My First Paid Gig! An Engagement Shoot.
You guys! My best friend is getting married! That's the super exciting news.
The other super exciting news?? I got to do her engagement photos!
GASP! I know. Right? I can hardly stand it. When we scheduled a time to do it, I immediately went to pinterest (because you can find everything you need on pinterest) and started looking up engagement shoots. I need inspiration. Poses, tips, everything you could possibly want or need or think about. I needed to know. I found so much information, I think I'm going to compile a whole different post about it! But I digress.
I pulled out pictures I liked for inspo, printed them off and carried them with me as a little cheat sheet. Maybe I shouldn't admit this if I want to keep doing other people's photography besides just my own, but I was nervous - so that little cheat sheet of poses and ideas was like a security blanket. We do what we need to, right???
I had no idea what to charge and because I am not a professional and really have never done this for anyone else before, I decided to basically just charge for the editing time (like I was getting paid by the hour, you know?) and not the actual sitting fee/photography. But then she went and paid my like a normal photographer anyway. Because she's cool like that.
It went really well. Elaine and Brian were super fun to work with. They were chill and easy going. They had suggestions of their own, which I loved, but the rolled with my ideas as well.
We were shooting by this fire escape and old distressed door I liked. I wanted to do some photos by this cool old brick wall, but the sun was not cooperating for that.
Around the corner, they noticed a little coffee shop and wanted to get a coffee - and I felt like hey, why not make this the shoot?? So we skipped the wall and did the coffeeshop instead. They loved it because it felt very "them."
I loved that Brian brought his guitar along... because it has a story - that's how he proposed to her! It was such a sweet sentiment so of course we incorporated that.
I had spent time punching out a TON of giant confetti in their wedding colors of navy and blush. And they were great sports when I stood on a step stool above them sprinkling it on them and snapping photos at the same time.
My only regret for the whole thing was that the sun seemed to set so fast! We managed to get some great shots, and there was no reason to keep shooting really, I just had these images in my head that I had to sort of eliminate from the session because I ran out of time.
So what can I work on? Picking just a few main places/poses/ideas and sticking to them. I tend to want to do everything and there's just no time for that. Plus most people would lose patience, thanks goodness Elaine and Brian did not.
I hope they love their engagement photos as much as I loved taking them!
