When Kimberly and Michael told me that we were meeting at a carousel and that, if nothing else, it would be a great photo ice-breaker, I knew we were going to have a fun session! It was a perfect start to the session because not only was this the first time I got to take their photo, it was the first time we were officially getting to meet, aside from phone & email! Kimberly & Michael live in Brooklyn, NY at the moment but their wedding is going to be in Kimberly’s hometown of Mansfield, OH so what better place to have the engagement session than there? Like I said, we started at the carousel that’s in the middle of the downtown area, and then for the remainder of the session we just meandered all around the area and explored some really neat spaces.
I mean, just a heads up to any future clients, a surefire way to make your photographer happy is to put them on a carousel. It was a very strange but hilarious experience at first riding backwards to capture images, but it was so fun. At first I assumed the guy running it was going to yell at me and tell me to sit down or something but he just kinda looked at me, realized what was going on, and laughed to himself, so I continued on!
After the carousel, we headed towards a few cool buildings that Jim and I had found while we were scouting out in the hours prior to the session.
Little did we know, as we were shooting the above image on the right, a guy that owned the building (I think?) opened the garage door and we were all sure either we were getting in trouble or he was yelling at the kids nearby who were climbing on the roof. It was neither. He came out and said he noticed we were taking photos and the entire interior of this super old (and AWESOME) building was ours to use. Um, what? So naturally I sent Jim in first to scope it out, just in case (sorry babe!), and then we followed suit and went to a few of the floors for some really awesome shots. I guess earlier that day there was some sort of tour of “old Mansfield” or something similar so the place was all open by him and cleaned up for people to come through, so it was perfect for us to use. Once he said “exposed brick on the 4th floor” I’m pretty confident I ran up those scary, slatted steps in hopes of a killer wall, and I was right!
All our indoor photos were lit by these cool frosted windows which gave us some lovely diffused light. We did a few photos in front of said windows, playing with some silhouettes, and when Kimberly & Michael made a heart with their arms I checked my camera to see if I thought it would work, and it just didn’t look like it was lit enough – boy was I wrong! The image below actually ended up being one of my favorites from the session, and I love it even more because this was just the two of them goofing off and trying to make something work without any direction from us at all. Those are the best moments.
After we left the 4th floor, our new best friend and tour guide pointed out that the doors to each floor were cool as were the open stairwells, so naturally we took advantage of all this building had to offer!
A quick outfit change later and we found ourselves in a cool alleyway in the middle of downtown. Being a Cleveland wedding photographer, I’m always thrilled at the chance to check out other areas when it comes to photography because I believe a new spot forces you to be extra creative, which I love.
Something else I love: getting our clients to be silly. At this point in the shoot Jim had them standing on these opposite ‘stoops’ if you will and I decided to take advantage and tell our clients, and I quote, “pretend you’re throwing love at each other”. Yes, that’s what I said. If you ever had a doubt that we as photographers are awkward and silly, this should remove all of that. They were champs for going right along with my suggestion – heck, I don’t think they even flinched. My kind of couple. (:
We also found a cute bench nearby and just sorta moved it where we wanted it. Yes, don’t worry, we put it back when we were done.
Cool right? A couple, on a bench, in the middle of an alleyway, totally alone. Right? WRONG. If you only knew the chaos that was going on behind us at this moment. Oh wait, we took a photo so you CAN know the chaos that was going on behind us. You see, during their engagement session, it was also the date of the local prom so there were kiddos and families and even HIRED PHOTOGRAPHERS (for prom!? crazy right!?) all over the city taking photos. Once we hit this alleyway we seemed to notice that we had been followed and I would not doubt that after we left this area, this same bench was moved back and there are prom photos taken like the images above and below.
We opted to head away from the prom groups as quickly as we could and we headed out to the city square for a few last images. All in all, this session was so fun and we were so happy to finally get to meet both Kimberly & Michael in person. They are so clearly in love with each other and we couldn’t be more excited to trek back down to Mansfield this summer for their wedding because from the details we’ve heard so far, it’s going to be AWESOME.
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