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Jared & Megan: Running Austin Engagements

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Running to a wedding near you in October Jared & Megan decided to have a bunch a fun on their engagement session and only moderately thumb their noses at no trespassing signs. We started around Barton Springs and the Zilker Hillside Theater for the open aired natural feel of the first photo in this post. We made a quick jaunt over to the Welcome to Austin postcard on Annie Street because Jared and Megan are both from out of state. And then the real fun began. Jared and I discussed how cool the new boardwalk around town lake is and wouldn’t it be nice to get some photos on it. After 2 or 3 false starts, and some gentle fence hopping we found a spot that gave us a great new view of downtown Austin near sunset. I think it will be a hugely popular spot once it opens in June.

The last section of our photos made me giggle too, because Jared reps Asics and Megan reps Adidas so they had a little competition to see who was faster and better looking, Meg won on both accounts for the record.

Let us know how we can personalize your engagement session and storytell your love for each other
–JB

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Ivy & Dan: Austin Engagement Session

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You might have already seen Ivy & Dan from their Soaked Section of their engagements. We figured that today would be a good time to show off their “normal” downtown Austin and baseball themed parts to our morning engagement portraits. Downtown Austin was chosen based on Dan not being from around these parts, and the baseball because they met on a baseball field!

Normal is never a good description of anything that Ivy and I take part of, so we had to add some silly photos into the mix. Exhibit A is the Darth Vader Choke photo with Dan getting at least 4 inches of air time. Exhibit B is the tackle on the basepaths, I don’t think jumping on the shortshop is in the rules of the game. But mainly what we got to capture was their love and warmth for each other. Above all that to me is what stands out when I view their photographs.

Love yall!
–JB

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Scotty Mac & Casey Jo: Engagements

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We say this all the time, but we really love our clients and all of their quirkiness! This pair have a few special talents that deserved a little attention. Scotty Mac is an elite runner for Rogue Athletic Club and Casey Jo is a collegiate gymnastic coach, so yeah both can do things that normal can’t. Scroll down the page a bit and see Scotty Mac doing his steeplechase hurdle over Casey Jo’s scorpion hold handstand. Just wow right?

The other thing we should note is that they have a silly silly sense of humor and are totally on the same wavelength. We will put up facebook the zombie kisses, Monkee walk and dual handstands to show how off-beat from the world they are but in tune with each other.

And lastly, the bright red Volkswagen Vanagon? How could we forget that! Scotty had it nice and polished up for the session and revved it up to make the central Austin to Pflugerville drive in just under 4 hours. Yes, he could have ran faster but this way he did it in style.

So which photograph is everyone’s favorite?

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Shepherd & Megan: Soaked Engagement

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We have said it before and we will say it again, we love our clients. We will be photographing Shepherd and Megan’s wedding next month at Vintage Villas. While going through our initial consultation with them I discovered that they felt their engagement pictures could be better suited to their personalities. When asked about their personalities it came out that they loved dancing together and were up for about anything. I casually mentioned that I was shooting a series called “Soaked” and they were instantly interested and willing to participate. Oh, and they are also super talented dancers. 2 weeks later we had them in my garage shooting in “rain” on a 60 degree day with 20 mph wind. Megan’s lips were blue after the 45 minute water torture, er, portrait session but she stayed committed throughout. Are these the best of the series so far?

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I know you can feel the warmth and passion this couple has for each other and it was shining through even as they were shivering together. Such a pleasure for us to watch them work out their choreography and moves on the spot. Then they would just bring it when the rain came down. Like a hip hop Singin in the Rain!

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Let me take a second to run through our process for capturing these Soaked shots. Due to the high wind we setup a 10 foot roll of black background paper inside my garage to shield it from the wind and to put the exposure of the black further into the shadowed ambient. The couple is just in front of the edge of the roof to get the water falloff on, in front and behind them. We have a AlienBee 800 with a small softbox from behind and a LP160 gelled red from the opposite corner. They were both on 1/2 ish power. The key light is an Einstein640 with a sport reflector on full power. That’s because we were at an ambient killing iso50, f18, 1/320th exposure. Cue the rain from Austin on a ladder and Bob’s your uncle. Austin is the premiere provider of rain in Travis County.

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We also took some proper engagements before the wet and wild part of the session. Made sure we had enough good ones where we could shoot without hesitation on the rain soaked section. There is this great old barn in my neighborhood that I am always looking to photograph in new ways. Lucky for us the clouds stayed together and dramatic. The vertical photograph above is maybe my favorite of the entire day because it shows Megan and Shepherd in their true state of happiness together, a small slice of time that represents their future time together. And from up close to tiny in the frame, I think these pair well together in a narrative fashion.

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Hope you have enjoyed the continuation of our Soaked Series, any requests for what to photograph in the rain next?
–JB

Jonnie & Jim: Engagement Photos in Zilker Park

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Love Bugs on the Zilker Lawn
Love Bugs on the Zilker Lawn

We love couples that come to us and say, “We love your work, make us look good, we trust you with the rest!” We mixed up some traditional looks and posing with dramatic one light techniques to get you the variety you see in the post. We also mixed in some natural light, slow shutter speed and for one set a tight spot grid on a big strobe. Lots of looks in just a few hundred yards of real estate and 2 hours.

Jonnie, how cool is that for a woman’s name!, wanted the traditional and the experimental. We can do that. The Zilker Park area is perfect because it’s beautiful, has downtown view and is the outdoor soul of Austin. That is challenging when we want to focus on just two people though. So for one of our “experiment” shots, we slowed our shutter speed way down to blur the hikers, bikers, and runners on the trail to focus on the stability of the couple.

Love is Tranquil, Everything else is Chaos
Love is Tranquil, Everything else is Chaos

We also played with the cool gazebo at Lou Neff Point, utilizing the graphic element of the lattice work against the sun in the sky. We have a bunch of silly ones from this area as well, but those will have to appear sometime later. But check out the blingy jeans Jonnie has on, sassy!

Dancing Dip
Dancing Dip

The next photograph is maybe my favorite from the session. Between the serendipity of the flock of ducks in the top of the frame, the leading lines of the old fence, to the expression on their faces. This photo just makes me smile on many levels.

Sectioned Skyline
Sectioned Skyline

For this last image I put on a long lens and tight spot grid (15 degree) on my big light. I told Jonnie and Jim to just play and dance and be involved in each other. Look at the way the highlights and shadows play with the rocks and the water. The spotlight highlights the couple at the top of the frame. Real fun to make this one happen. Hundreds of people passed by while taking this set but you would never know from how Jonnie and Jim are looking at each other.

Alone in a Crowd
Alone in a Crowd

Super fun couple, looking forward to photographing their wedding at a new to me venue, Peacock Ranch in Gatesville, Texas.
–JB

Andrew & Cathie: Engagements on Film

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A little backstory to start off this post. My wife’s father was a huge camera junkie, some of the cameras he owned were in indeed on the large side (polaroid land and a Speed Graphic) but most of them are of the 35mm variety. The photos in this post are taken with a Pentax K1000 and a 28mm f2.8 lens. This is an old school, all manual camera that is tough as nails in a I-don’t-even-need-a-battery-to-work-I-just-get-the-job-done kind of way. Which explains why Glenn owned it, because he was that kind of guy too. The back body literally has his name on the camera etched with a penknife. I hope that I get to channel a small bit of his sensibilities into each photograph.

I have just recently had it serviced and deemed ready to photograph with again. So we are starting to use them for small portions of portrait and engagement sessions for a different look and feel. I love slowing down with film, pausing, thinking, and contemplating the next shot. On this roll of film I only glanced at the non-existent review screen 3 times! I really like the lack of auto-focus and freeing my mind from the limitations of auto-focus points.

Let’s move on and talk about this super awesome couple for a minute shall we? You, our faithful blog readers, have already seen them rock some Mad Men style in their first appearance. This session was to finish up our engagement photography needs with a casual and somewhat vintage look. The old-school-ness of Andrew and Cathie were another reason that I wanted to debut the film files with them. The final images fit their sensibilities of tradition and style.

We photographed these in the old Wells Branch homestead at Katherine Fleischer park futhering the old world vibe. I love that these guys are stable and grounded with their feelings for each other. They just are as one as most are as two. Very much on the same wavelength with each other. Any serious photographs of the two of them together is a mere fraction of a second surrounded by minutes of laughter.

We will continue to utilize the look and feel of the 70’s era Pentax. For now I am really digging on the look that the Kodak Portra 160 is providing. Think it might be right for part of your engagement session? Let us know!
–JB
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Ashley & Andrew: Bounce House Engagements

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We love stepping outside the box of normal engagement session portraits from underwater romance to Indiana Jones the sky is the limit for AzulOx Photography. In talking with Ashley, she felt that an out of the box session was definitely the right idea for her and her fiance Andrew. She mentioned that she was a bit of a book lover and that Andrew was more over the top zany. I can relate to both. A bounce house seemed like just the spot to show off Andrew and his acrobatic zeal, and we came to find out that Ashley was a cheerleader in High School so we got her in the air too!

Went with a little over the top saccharine expressions and lighting in the last couple of images to match to the bright colors and artificial lighting of the location. Later in the day we photographed the happy couple downtown around the spot of their engagement. I just wanted to highlight the differences we can make with a little lighting and a little creativity.

9-Pin Romance: Alan & Amy’s Engagements

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Location: Zorn Bowling Club
Time: November, 1955
Cast:
Alan as the Shady Bowling Instructor
Amy as the Ingenue

Scene 1, Act 2 – 9 Pin Romance

Scene Notes:
The young woman has decided to take up 9 pin bowling, but first she needs proper instruction. The handsome bowling instructor seems very keen on her giving personal attention. What happens next, but a winter romance ends up transpiring in the pin setting back room. The party lines will be ringing about this engagement.


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Big Thanks to Kevin Harboth at the Zorn Bowling Club for helping us out in the facilities and hospitality department. Couldn’t have done it without you. For more on 9 pin bowling.