Shooting engagement pictures in the almost-always-pleasant Charleston, SC is one thing, but shooting in 38 degree weather in a city your not familiar with, provides a whole set of new challenges.
I’ve only been to NY city once before, and it was only for a couple days. As an outsider you can’t help be drawn to the popular landmarks a city like New York is known for. I had some unique idea’s for pictures I wanted to create, but most of the places I was thinking about were too spread out from each other and time consuming to cover in one day. For Dawn and Phil, they were open to any idea’s I had, but since they lived in NY, and none of these places had all that much meaning or interest for them personally, we chose to keep it much simpler. And with the cold weather, we had even more limitations.
My approach to engagement photography is first and foremost to create pictures and document moments that really capture a couples love for one another. Then if I can incorporate a sense of story of what it would be like to watch them together on a romantic, carefree day, then we’ve got much more than just a handful of random photos, we might even feel like we have a story. The final goal is to create pictures with wow, creative intrigue, and/or something that just feels special and unique to the place, time, and couple.
For Dawn and Phil, we decided on starting in an area they used to live by and spent a lot of their early time together. Then we moved throughout that neighborhood and down to the water. I also wanted to try to get a shot where we could get some of the New York skyline. So when we were able to get access to the rooftop of their old apartment building, I was excited, except I knew it would be cold for them up there. Even though our time was very limited by that cold wind and daylight, we were able to some pictures I was hoping for. Once we got those pictures, I felt we got a great variety of pictures from the day, but we were missing a bigger, more cinematic image. I wanted a wow closer that could feel like a scene from a movie. So for the final act, we headed over to Rockefeller Center to close out the day with some pictures that we all felt said just that! What do you think?
New York Engagement Photography- Dawn + Phil ©King Street Studios
All Photography by Todd Surber