engagement portrait – Jared Platt

Meghan and Charles Engagement Portraits in Atlanta Georgia

This engagement portrait session was an absolute joy. I flew into Atlanta, Georgia and met Meghan and Charles at their family Lake House outside the city at Lake Lanier. It was mid-January, and it was a fairly cold day and it only got colder. So we spent a few hours taking advantage of the chilly weather (which looked chilly as well). But you will see that the chill in the air influenced the way the photographs look and event the treatment of the images. I did not attempt to “warm them up” in fact they are fairly cool, if not neutral. We even got a little fog for some of the shots rolling in over the trees on the other side of the lake.

Meghan asked specifically that we photograph with a 1990’s Vanity Fair / GQ style. So the clothing, the grain, the posing, the muted color, the clean light, etc… all of it was my effort to give a bit of that look to the photoshoot.

I was shooting the engagement portrait with a new Canon EOSR mirrorless camera, which was a great opportunity to really put that camera through its paces. It is a wonderful little camera, but I look forward to a more professional version of the R series cameras to come out from Canon, hopefully soon. It is still much easier to shoot with a Canon 5D Mark IV or some other pro body camera. That being said, the EOSR will be a nice addition to the bag with its small, lightweight body and completely silent shutter (great for the wedding itself) which will be held in a small church in the Bahamas this summer.

We were using the new Profoto B10 off camera flash (two of them) and they are magnificent. All the power we needed, never ran out of batteries, never missed a shot and always created beautiful light. One of our lights had a softbox and the other was sporting the OCF Magnum Reflector. That was the light set up most of the time (especially when we were outside). It was a bit windy, so the softbox was a challenge, but a little weight on the stand in the form of a log took care of that problem.

Getting to know Meghan and Charles at the lake house and on their engagement portrait shoot was a real joy. And aside from the photos, that is the major value of doing an engagement shoot of some kind: getting to know the clients, and the clients getting to know the photographer. It’s like a little test run and an opportunity for a little model training. Meghan and Charles thought they could use some modeling lessons. I think they were great right from the start. But, we talked through some basic rules for being a subject on a photoshoot. I won’t go through them here, but I will give you one very important rule:

Rule 1: If you’re uncomfortable, you are going to look uncomfortable! Get comfortable.

Enjoy the photos from the session.

Engagement portraits in Atlanta Georgia near the lake Black and White

I Love New York: Ilyas and Sheena’s Engagement Portraits

Ilyas and Sheena’s Engagement Portraits from Jared Platt on Vimeo.

I met Sheena and Ilyas at Central Park in New York City for their engagement portrait session. They are both very busy people (doing the doctor thing) so getting them together on a date I could get to NYC was a challenge, but we found a date and made it happen. Central Park is so full of possibilities, it is a perfect spot for a walk and a photo shoot.

My favorite thing about Central Park is the fact that one can be in a city that size and feel like you are in the country. At times, I even forget about the traffic noise. So I wanted to get a few shots that put the couple in the forest, away from it all.

It’s a bit of a challenge to get an empty staircase here, but I managed to sneak a few moments where that right section of the staircase is empty for a brief moment. I was glad that those moments also aligned with a few moments between Sheena and Ilyas. That’s the gamble that is photography. We are often waiting for the stars to align to give us the best background, the best light, the best moment and on top of it all, we need to get the right exposure and the perfect composition. Sometimes it works.

When photographing an engagement shoot, I always recommend finding a warlock to be a part of the shoot.

I love the architecture. But the shadows under there get a little deep, so I threw a Canon 600 EX RT Flash under the arches on the opposite wall and popped a little bounce light in there to keep those arches illuminated. There is such great architecture in that park, I enjoyed using it all in the photoshoot.

I did a bit of scouting the day before and found a few spots Ilyas and Sheena had never been. It is understandable. The place is enormous.

I love this shot.

And this one. By the way, there’s a lot of backlight there and there’s no way this shot would have worked without the use of my 600 EX RT flash set off the left of the frame on a picnic table filling them in with a bit of light.

By the end of the shoot, Sheena was done wearing the shoes. So was I, and I was wearing comfortable street shoes. We didn’t do a lot of “city” shots, but on the way back to their car, I thought the street looked inviting, so we grabbed a shot there.

And then, one of my favorite shots presented itself as we continued toward their car. I love the iron gates and the stairs and the dappled light coming through the trees. I love it.