This session was the best way to finish up the month of June. It was such a rainy rainy month and we finally got an amazing rain free perfect evening for their shoot.
I first met Melissa and Matt at the Martha Stewart show I did back in March. When we talked about their session they wanted to hit a couple of their favorite Chicago spots including Buckingham Fountain where Matt proposed. We started out at Lincoln Park and worked our way downtown. I definitely wanted night shots at the fountain and I LOVE the results we got! It was great getting to know them a little better before the big day!
Here are a few of my favorites. I can’t wait for their wedding next summer!
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This gorgeous golden light is exactly why I like to shoot sessions in the hour leading into sunset!
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Next stop was the Chicago stop on the Brown Line. What’s more Chicago than the L? So you can’t actually shoot up on the platforms or near the tracks, but I still loved this photo stop.
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Last stop was Buckingham Foutain. We took some shots when we arrived and then had to wait out the sun a bit to get the right balance of sky and buildings set up. This session was right after the Hawks won the Stanley cup so you can see in some of the wider shots the buildings have writing on them with lights about the cup (Stanley is back, go hawks go)!
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Below is my favorite from the session and one of my all time favorites as well 🙂
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Well this might go down as one of the wildest engagement sessions I’ve shot. You wouldn’t know it from looking at the photos, but we ran into lots of crazy things in just the couple of hours we were together.
For starters it poured down rain on my ride downtown to meet Julie and John and amazingly it stopped raining as soon as I arrived. We took advantage of the break in the rain and started shooting at the Lurie Garden in Millenium Park. Unforunately due to the Blackhawks parade being that morning we ran into some issues with several areas being blocked off or closed. We went to the skywalk – closed. We went to the garden by the Art Institute – closed.
We were headed out of the park and witnessed a fist fight going down in the street. Within minutes it was a mess of police and ambulances – the perfect setting for engagement photos right?! Nothing says I love you like a guy laying in the middle of the street bleeding. Needless to say we got the heck out of there and away from all the drunken Hawks fans.
The next stop was Olive Park near Navy Pier. Of course it once again started raining on our way over. They did a quick outfit change and we ventured out between the rain. Olive park is generally open until 10ish (at least from my previous experiences) but for some reason we were kicked out by police at 8pm. I think by this point they thought I was lying about all these locations that I swear are normally open haha.
We headed down to the beach for a few last shots with some looming dark clouds. The beach was littered with trash from that days earlier activities which took some serious photoshop magic to clean up. And just as we were packing up it started pouring rain. We ran for cover as I tried to protect my gear . Unfortunately in park there aren’t a lot of great places to take cover. Luckily a gentlemen and his kids were nice enough to let us squeeze in under a covered bus stop for a few minutes with them. I usually don’t end sessions by ramming my couples in a 6 foot space with 3 strangers, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do! When I finally got in a cab to head home I was soaked from head to toe and the guy goes “Oh man – what have you been doing?”……. never what you want to hear from a cabbie because you know he sees all kinds of people all day.
Lesson of this session – Don’t plan on a session on the day of the Blackhawks parade and if you do hope that you get lucky enough to have amazing clients that will roll with the punches… literally!
Can’t wait for their wedding in September! Let’s hope it’s a little calmer!
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We snuck a quick pic in by the ferris wheel at Navy Pier where John proposed!
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Off to Olive Park 🙂
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Meet Emily and Tony! I can’t wait for their 2014 wedding! They are the sweetest couple and it was great to finally meet them in person. So many of my couples (like these two) are out of state so I’m always glad when they do engagement session so that I can get to know them a little better before the big day.
We started our shoot at Buckingham Fountain and made our way out by the Planetarium for some skyline shots. It was a hot one, but they were troopers! Here are some of my favorites from their session.
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My 2013 Favorites: The Engagements - Becky Brown Photography » Becky Brown Photography - […] This image at Buckingham Fountain got a ton of action on Facebook this year! It’s probably my favorite engagement image of the year I’ve really been trying to work more on my night images now that I live in a city with a great skyline (sorry Indianapolis). Thanks to Melissa and Matt for waiting out the sun with me as I tried to time it just right to get the Chicago sklyine lit up, but still have a blue sky. I have actually semi recreated this shot about 3 times after this one because people loved it so much. See the full session by clicking HERE. […]
Morton Arboretum Wedding : Melissa + Matt – 6/28/14 » Becky Brown Photography - […] Arboretum! You may remember them from our epic engagement session last year (you can see that here). I have been anxiously awaiting this day for a long time because I knew that it would an […]