Surprise Engagement Drone Video and Photography in Pacific Grove with Tim and Anna and Goose
This surprise engagement drone flight and photo shoot was long in the works. Tim first contacted me a few months ago when we started discussing locations and ideas for how to pull off this surprise! The location Tim chose, I knew very well since I walk the Pacific Grove coast often myself. I knew exactly where the spot was he showed me in just one reference photo! With the location decided, then how to capture the candid engagement moment? Tim ultimately chose for the actual real, candid moment to be recorded with drone video (see the above video). I got there early with my assistant, Felix, and was in position with the drone already in the air so I could capture their walk up and approach to the coastline. Tim told me he stoop down and pick up three shells, and the third would have the ring hidden under it, so that was my signal. Being as discrete as possible I had the drone hovering near the couple, and as I saw him make his move, I slowly brought the drone in closer and closer until you can see in the video Goose started barking at it, but by that time I had already recorded the actual proposal moment!
Surprise engagement photography at Point Lobos Park in Carmel California
Irving contacted me asking about using Hidden Beach in Point Lobos State Park as the location for a surprise engagement photo shoot. Hidden Beach itself may be hidden, but it’s a very small beach with not really any place for a photographer to hide, but I did my best to keep the element of surprise when Irving arrived with Marissa and the ring came out! After Irving proposed, and Marissa accepted, we did some posed shots using my unique style of off camera lighting. After the beach, we went up on the nearby bluff for a different meadow and ocean background. Thank you Iriving for choosing me as your photographer and congratulations to you and Marissa!
It was kind of unusual that my very first photo shoot since moving to California was an engagement shoot in Big Sur, something I do not specialize in and have not done in a long time. However, Prasanna contacted me and said he liked my work and even though I told him I am not an engagement or wedding photography specialist, he still wanted me as his photographer. I was flattered by that! The weather just worked out, as well as the timing, for getting these candid engagement shots. I now have a go to location for this type of shoot if clients do not have their own preference! Thank you Prasanna for choosing me as your engagement photographer and congratulations!
An ultimate wedding and meeting story up on a mountain
I met Davis and Veronica last summer, as I was drafted onto their summer league ultimate frisbee team. I saw them again at other frisbee events, and since I took photos at some of those, they knew I was a professional photographer. So when they got engaged earlier this year, I was very flattered they wanted me to be their wedding photographer! Their own story of how they met started with ultimate frisbee too!
Like many professional photographers just starting out, I photographed weddings. Dozens and dozens of weddings actually, but after a couple of years I switched, for several reasons, to being a commercial photographer. Now, I still photograph a wedding every now and then, but mostly only for friends or friends of friends, and in this case, a networking friend, Sarah. There was something about this wedding that was a first for me, with a wedding being the surprise conclusion to a renovated event hall at the First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque. So my challenge was to be inconspicuous with two large cameras and lenses on my person, in a room full of people who knew each other but not me, so as to not spoil the wedding finale surprise! I am happy to say I did not, and the wedding was a complete surprise to everyone in the hall except me.
Bobby called me up asking if I could do a live photoshoot of him proposing to his girlfriend. I said yes, I could, and I have actually done this very thing before back on a beach in Florida. Now there are a lot of variables that go into any outside, on location photoshoot, and even more for a live shoot. Luckily, with as much preparation and planning as we could do beforehand, everything worked well for the live shoot! I casually pretended to be photographing the mountains while Bobby put bowties on the dogs and got the ring out.
I do not often photographs weddings anymore, though I photographed dozens in the beginning of my photography career. In fact, this was only the second wedding I have photographed since 2013! This was a special occasion, however, as networking friend Alex called me up and asked if I could photograph his wedding with just a little bit of short notice (a day!). I was not traveling for rural land photography that Saturday so I said I could do it and would be glad to!
