I love shooting close friends.
I know photographers have mixed opinions about working with friends, but I enjoy it. I like it mainly because it is usually comfortable from the start. We all tend to laugh more because there’s a slight awkwardness about it all. More often than not I’m not photographing my friends; we are just hanging out. So now they get in front of my lens and the business side of me comes out: friend becomes client.
Friends for years now.
I have photographed them each, separately, before, and I actually got to shoot her sister’s wedding last fall at The Wright Farm. With this shoot, we took a quick hour out of the day to shoot them at all the sentimental locations for them at Berry College. It was a short shoot because they are planning for us to do a longer session where they can go hiking and fly-fish over the summer. We visited their first date location and other nostalgic places for their relationship.
I continue to push myself.
Again, I am always trying to push myself so I tried out using another 50mm lens, the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 ART. It is not the focal length in which I enjoy seeing the world, but I was still able to find a lot of satisfaction in the portraits we made. They are super into each other, and we really just hung out for a bit while I captured their love and excitement towards one another.
We had a beautiful, evenly-lit afternoon, and the biggest problem we faced was that we couldn’t shoot for longer. I feel like I get more excited during engagement shoots than the couples do, and I’d easily keep going for several more hours if I could. I really love what I do, and it hasn’t gotten old for me (and I hope it never does). They’re getting married this September in Knoxville at Hunter Valley Farms, and I’m really looking forward to working with them again.
