The city that never sleeps

The week before Christmas, HA and I decided to go to New York. It was a fantastic trip and we'd like to go back. We did all the normal touristy stuff - the Empire State building, a show on broadway, and the Rockettes.

We had brilliant food. You could spend a whole vacation just eating all day and never doing anything else. We had two really beautiful dinners while we were there but one in particular was fantastic. Adam took me to The Palace for dinner. The food was beyond good and the atmosphere had a very trendy vibe. We needed up making friends with the bartender and having drinks with him that night.

These were my favorite Christmas decorations in the city.

We found these on the Brooklyn Bridge and thought they were very cool. I couldn't help myself in photographing them.

I took this picture from the top of the Rockafeller Center right before Adam asked me a very important question....

Of course I said yes! He did a fantastic job designing the ring (yes, he designed it himself). Now we just need to finish all the wedding planning!

 

Engagement Session

While I was home last week, my sister asked me to take some pictures of her and her financee.  They had had some engagement pictures done right after he proposed but they were the standard studio pictures and JP wanted something a bit different.

I'm taking on this photography stuff and I do quite like it.  Up to this point, I hadn't done much in the way of choregraphing shots.  There were a couple that I did for the Project 52 (which I am totally behind on) but otherwise, I prefer to take candid shots.

To prepare for the "session" with JP and BL, I looked through the websites of photographers that I particularly like.  The website I spent the most time on is a woman that I worked with in Kansas City who has now become a full time photographer.  I absolutely love her work.  Please go check her out - http://www.jamiemillerimages.com/.  I downloaded some of the pictures with poses that I particularly liked so I could use them for reference.

I had hoped to take the pictures in CO Springs so that we could get an urban feel to them.  Unfortunately, JP and BL had to work and so we had very little sunlight between when they got off work and when the sun went down.  Given our time constraints, we decided to just do the "session" at my mom and dad's house.  This meant I had to go back to my research and look for poses that were outdoors and a bit more "country".

When they finally got to the house, we immediately went outside and got started.  We had a bit of trouble in that JP kept laughing...like laughing laughing.  She couldn't just give me a pretty smile.  I set them up in a few poses and got some shots but I was feeling very uncomfortable with the whole process.  I wasn't real sure what to do. 

After about 20 minutes, I had gotten a bunch pictures and headed inside.  We reviewed them with Mom and she decided we needed more pictures.  So we grabbed my laptop, which had my "posing guide" and headed back outside.  I made Mom come with me this time to help we setup up the shots.  We spent a bit more time outside and got a bunch more shots and had a few laughs as well.

I've done a bit of post-processing on some of the pictures and thought I would share them with you.  Hope you enjoy them!