I realized that Lance & Sheri…. (AKA my parents) have never had couple photos done! I’ve never seen any at least so I was just assuming that they never had them done. How can you have a wedding photographer as a son and not have couple photos right? Well anyone who know’s my father will attest that this is something he probably wouldn’t willingly do.

Trey and I recently went to Utah for him to meet my family for the first time and they absolutely loved him of course. So I decided to do something nice for them and take some couple photos of them. By “nice” I mean that I told my father the day before our shoot ‘We are doing some photos of you and Sheri tomorrow so just be ready. I’m not asking- I’m telling you. It’s happening.’ Essentially I forced myself onto them… but none the less I felt like it was a nice thing to do.

I didn’t know of many great locations in Utah simply because I’m not the photographer that likes to go to common photo locations. I like to find off the path locations that have never been done before so it’s one of kind for my couples. Then I always go scout the location so I can be sure lighting is going to work before I take anyone out there. The last thing I want is to walk in blind and have to ‘make it work’. I just don’t roll like that- I want a guarantee that I’ll be able to produce fantastic images for my couples. Long story long…. I had to turn to google and we walked in blind to this location. The reasons why I’m so adamant about scouting ahead of time was being reiterated to me in real time.

Here’s what happened…

I came across these big golden fields at Tunnel Springs Park which is only about 20 minutes from Salt Lake City. It seems like it was a pretty remote location right? No. Not at all actually. We showed up and there had to have been 30 photographers with families, couples, kids, you name it there. I had to place them in a very specific location and only shoot one direction to avoid all the people.

This also meant that I had to work with whatever direction the light was coming from which was less than ideal. The reality is that you have a lot of choices that you make during a session, but light is one of the things that you don’t have a choice about- you have to work with what you have.

Now why am I going on and on about this? First, it’s my family so I can be a little more honest than normal but mainly it’s to show the importance of scouting a location ahead of time. Yes, these images came out stunning and I love them but the main take away here is to take a little extra time and go scout a location to make your life so much easier. If Trey and I were getting engagement photos done and I received the gallery only to find it wasn’t what I was expecting or my skin was totally blown out because the light was too harsh… I would be pretty upset. That also sets the tone for what you’re going to be like as their wedding photographer right?

All in all though, I was so happy with these. They’re bright, they’re soft, they’re…. film. Ok truth: they’re shot on digital but they are pretty dang close to any of my film scans.

Parentals: I normally say thank you for letting me photograph you, but I guess in this case I’ll end with saying thanks for not fighting me when I told you that we were doing these. LOL! Love you guys!