Essential Stuff

No, spring hasn’t sprung in Spokane.  Still snow on the ground.  I’m just going trough all my old files from the summer and came across Amanda and Dayln’s engagement portrait session, and I thought I’d post a few here.  It was a great session, mostly because of Amanda and Dayln.  They wanted something outdoorsy, not too formal, casual, warm, comfortable.  Much like they are themselves.  So we chose Plante’s Ferry Park in Spokane Valley.

They were absolutely delightful.  There was no awkwardness in front of the camera, no nervousness, nothing uncomfortable about their expression of delight in each other.  They laughed, joked, hugged, kissed, carried each other around on their backs, and laughed some more.  I really didn’t have to give any instructions at all.  I just stayed back and shot away.

Eventually, around sunset, we headed out for some train tracks.  We don’t think we broke any laws getting there (we jumped no fences and it wasn’t a BNSF rail  road).  And we lucked into a spectacular sunset.  Delightful redheads, these two are.  And their engagement session was one of the highlights of last summer.  There are a few more photographs for the engagement session in this gallery.

Jack met Shannon when (shhh, don’t tell anyone) he was her supervisor at the casino.  They both work there as card dealers.  So it was pretty cool that they incorporated playing cards in their wedding, with black, white and red as their colors, cards at each table, and the minister speaking of marriage being a situation where the players had to go “all in.”

And if it sounds like Shannon and Jack are fun people to be around, then you are absolutely right. There was a lot of laughing at their wedding, a lot of jokes and drinks and kisses and celebrating.

They were also brave enough to go out into the cold and do some outdoor portraits, which I always love.  The groomsmen, with their jackets, never seem to mind very much, but I always feel sorry for the bridesmaids.  Eventually, the groomsmen handed over their coats.  Then Shannon sent everyone in except the three of us, for more portraits, and a passer-by at the right time might have seen the photographer in a warm fuzzy coat (I don’t know if it was fur or faux fur), and the bride in a sleeveless dress, saying “No, no, I’m actually quite warm.”

Generous, fun-loving, and completely in love: that’s how I’d describe Shannon and Jack.  Click here are some photographs from their wedding day.

Okay, so obviously I’m doing a little back-blogging here.  The shorts and sunshine is a dead give-away that I didn’t take these pictures this winter.  But I thought it was high-time to post from Sara and Ben’s engagement session.  Even though they now live in Spokane, they wanted to have their pictures taken at the campus of Washington State University in Pullman, since that was where they had met and started dating.

So on a toasty summer day, we drove down.  They were hoping to get some pictures near the stadium to show the degree of their WSU fandom.  They even had some festive WSU apparel.  But we did NOT expect to find the stadium doors open.  And what should one do, when given an opportunity like that?  I mean, there was no one there saying we couldn’t go inside and shoot.  Needless to say, we were all pretty excited about the session.  You can check out the photographs here.