Jenny and Josh

We met up in Sugar House with Jenny and Josh to shoot their engagement photos last week, and it was a lot of fun to hang out with them both. Jenny served in Oakland on an LDS mission at the same time as my sister Jasmine, and so it was entertaining to hear her tell stories about Jaz as we worked... after all, a sister always needs more ammunition. :)
After we were done, we were able to head on over to Smashburger for dinner, which was awesome. I love being able to just sit and talk with my clients, as I usually feel like they are good friends of mine after a shoot. Engagement and Bridal sessions are wonderful for getting comfortable with each other before the wedding day, but nothing quite beats just sitting around talking over games or a good meal. Plus, the rosemary and garlic fries at Smashburger were delicious.

I loved the reds in this one...

My hubby

This is Thomas.
He sat in for me in this window-light only shoot. I loved the challenge of using only natural light for these headshots.
Not only is Thomas a great model, husband, and business manager, but he's also willing to be my Voice Activated Light Stand on my photoshoots. He even puts me on his shoulders so I can get a better angle for the large group shots at a wedding. How many people can say that about their spouse?

Here's something a little bit more dramatic:


And look at this smile... The smile that says he loves me. The smile that convinces me to let him skip the household chores. Much too convincing. It's dangerous.

Thomas is amazing. We've been married almost two years, and I'm grateful for him every day.

Photo from our wedding by Scott Jarvie

Allison's Bridals

We got lucky with Allison's bridal session and scheduled it on one of the few consistently warm days in the past couple weeks. It definitely makes it more pleasant to shoot when you can feel all your extremities.
Allison's dress was beautiful, with a very classic, traditional feel. We explored the area around Daybreak in West Jordan for this shoot. A couple new locations were discovered, and there was much rejoicing.

She has a great smile, doesn't she?

I love colors in the flare on the lens... I guess this is Darron's treasure at the end of the rainbow? :)

Click here for the full gallery.

Abbey and Taylor

Shooting Abbey and Taylor's engagements was some of the most fun I have ever had in a photo session. As a photographer I try to get sincere smiles and often make corny jokes or silly noises at my clients in an attempt to get them to smile naturally. I didn't need to do anything for these two- they were totally natural, laughed the entire time, and just had a blast being together.
As far as the location goes, we hit a few different spots- one is evidently a very popular setting for engagements. It's "Exchange Place" in downtown Salt Lake City, and I can see the appeal. There were some very fun backgrounds and buildings to interact with. Aside from exchange place, we had wandered around a bit and just went with the flow. I love photoshoots where I can have a few loose ideas in my head but still have the flexibility just to explore and see what there is nearby to work with. It's an adventure that way, and ensures the experience is different every single time. Being a photographer is awesome at times like these.
Abbey and Taylor's wedding colors are "shades of green" so we were thrilled that Spring finally seemed to arrive and the grass was actually green instead of dead and brown.

Words can't express how happy I was with how this one turned out. Silhouette + Rim lighting + wicked awesome posing from the models = ♥

They were so happy together- great smiles all around!

Yay for sun flares!!!

This picture makes me smile. Great moment...

Love their personality.

Click here to see the rest of the gallery- they were full of awesomeness. Too much to share in this post.

Alyssa and Justin

Most of the time when the weather report is looking a bit threatening, I have clients calling in a panic wanting to know if we can reschedule. When the morning started out gloomy and snow was forecast online for the afternoon I called out to Alyssa and Justin to ask what they wanted to do. "Well, we like snow... so yeah, let's do it today." Well cool, I'm up for it. Not too many people want to shoot in a blizzard. And after all was said and done, it turned out great. I do think it took about 3 days for my fingers to thaw, though.
My intern, Justin Workman, told me about this awesome gear sculpture in downtown Salt Lake.

You can get some strange looks while taking pictures in the middle of the street. You can also get some neat photos.

I love how snow can reflect the light.

I loved the lights in this tunnel....

Click here for the full gallery.

Christina and Heber

For Christina and Heber's engagement pictures we decided to head on up the canyon. They love the outdoors and spending their time in nature, so setting up a downtown shoot wouldn't really have fit their personality too well. And, given that Christina is from Alaska, we knew we'd have to pick a landscape that would show off some of the truly stunning views that Utah has to offer here in the Rockies. The spot they picked worked out perfectly, though the amount of snow still up there doesn't much look like it was the middle of April. :)
This one kind of says, "western novel cover" to me. What do you think?

LOVE the texture of the rocks and the lichen here.... the contrast with the smooth unblemished snow was great.

This is exactly what I think of when I hear the word "winter". Gorgeous.

Now I'm originally from Texas, so I have seen some truly amazing skies and sunsets featuring huge rolling clouds. This one, though, was definitely as good as anything I have ever come across...

This session wouldn't be complete without showing the second love of Heber's life... his truck! Love love love the way the reflection turned out.

Ok maybe I spoke too fast earlier.... THIS one truly does scream "western novel cover".

Click here for the full gallery.

Allison and Darron

April is an odd month in Utah, weather-wise. I can't really remember any other place I've lived where I can easily get a procession of warm sunshine, cloudy skies, rain, sunshine again, hail, and then back to sunshine with an extra dose of intermittent freezing wind all in the course of about 3 hours.
Given that the notion of taking engagement photos in ski parkas didn't overly appeal to our clients, we had to reschedule once for Allison and Darron's session. April had decided to surprise us with about 5 inches of snow on our designated day for the first shoot (of course, the snow was all gone by 5pm but I digress). For our second appointment we were greeted with an agreeably clear sky, a few puffy clouds and some great sunshine. It was only after we got out of the car and stood there for 30 seconds that we realized there was a rip in space-time somewhere nearby, allowing a gale-force wind directly from the North Pole to smack us in the face. However, since we were already there our hardy couple decided to soldier on and get the photos taken care of. They weren't really dressed for it, but they were awesome sports. I myself was fine with the wind, but I guess the gloves, woolen hat and pea coat might have helped a little bit....
The photos turned out wonderfully (which is all that matters, right?), and I only had to take the blue out of their lips and fingers on just a couple of pictures. ;)

Check out the full gallery here.

Megan and Ben

I love shooting on location, but sometimes it presents minor problems when the location I want has pesky "no trespassing" signs. In the spirit of it's-better-to-ask-forgiveness-than-permission, I usually ignore it and tell the clients to put their blinders on and, if confronted, just to run away with their fingers in their ears saying "la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you!" It does, however, pose a conundrum when I frequent a specific location on a regular basis though.... :)
One of the nice things about outdoor spots is the opportunity to return with different clients and capture the differences as the seasons change. You can go from snow, to green, to beautiful fall foliage, to snow again....
Megan and Ben are getting married in June, so it was definitely time to get their engagement photos done in preparation for the announcements. We hit up the orchard (a favorite for Megan), and a few other spots around Provo. Good times were had by all....

Click here to see the full gallery.

Shelby and Steve- the saga continues...

On March 27th Shelby and Steve, having been officially pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Law, continued their streak of downright miraculous meteorological good fortune. I've blogged before about how things just seemed to work out perfectly for their engagements and Shelby's bridals and how we got exactly the weather we needed when we needed it. Well, this one took the cake.
While we had had some spotty bad weather up in Utah County the day before, we figured it would probably be warmer and nice and clear down in Manti. Driving 100 miles south should count for something, right? We had an early morning ceremony, and so as we were driving along still half-asleep we didn't really pay too much attention to the surroundings. As we got closer, we started noticing with surprise and a little bit of alarm that everything was covered in snow. ...A lot of snow. The roads were iced over, and it was looking a lot more like the beginning of January than the end of March. We get closer and about 30 miles out the skies are completely black, with huge dark clouds EVERYWHERE. We get about 25 miles away and it starts snowing like crazy. We're talking full-on heavy snowstorm here. 16 miles out and it's still black skies and snow everywhere you can see. Now we're getting a bit nervous.
Then, somewhere in the last 10 miles or so, we see the smallest speck of blue. As we continue, it gets bigger and bigger. Finally, in the very last mile before we get there, the sky is completely clear. In fact, it is some of the bluest, most beautiful skyline I have ever seen, with huge puffy white clouds interspersed. Not only is there no snow on the ground, but the grass is green, and the roads are bone-dry. The only hint of the weather north of us is a breeze that admittedly feels like the icy touch of death itself. I'm serious, that wind was just lazy- instead of going all the way around you, it just took the short route and went right through you. But the point is, everything looked gorgeous! And with photos, that's all that really matters, isn't it? ;)
I tell you... these two be living right. Somebody up there must really like them to go three-for-three with the awesome weather.
This is what we got. Other people get snow, we get perfection.

Coming out to greet the adoring masses....

Like a fairy tale.... oooooh yeah.

Love the bouquet..... and the tender moment. :D

The happy bride and groom, outside the reception dinner...

To see more of the wedding (and you really should), check out the galleries here.