Photographer Proposes by Flashing the Big Question Onto His Girlfriend’s Portrait Backdrop

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Three years ago, photographer Marvin Lewis and his then-girlfriend-of-5-years Amanda Marie began an annual tradition of doing a photo shoot on their anniversary. For this year’s photo shoot on the couple’s 8th annivesary, Lewis decided to make it extra special by asking Amanda to marry him.

The way he popped the question involves photography in a clever way: he projected the big question onto the studio backdrop using his off-camera flash, allowing Amanda to see it when she reviewed the photo on the back of the DSLR.

Lewis projected the words “Amanda Will you marry me” onto the background using a custom slide inserted into a Light Blaster strobe-based image projector.

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slide

Lewis placed multiple cameras around the room to document the proposal. Here’s a sequence of photographs showing how it unfolded:

Amanda posing for a test portrait before the real thing.
Amanda posing for a test portrait before the real thing.
The message projected by the off-camera flash was only captured by the camera.
The message projected by the off-camera flash was only captured by the camera.
Reviewing the test portrait on the LCD screen of the DSLR
Reviewing the test portrait on the LCD screen of the DSLR
Seeing the proposal message in the background of the photo.
Seeing the proposal message in the background of the photo.
Seeing Marvin kneeling with ring and GoPro in hand.
Seeing Marvin kneeling with ring and GoPro in hand.

“Out of all the photo shoots have planned and shot, this one was the most important one. I asked the girl of my dreams to marry me,” Lewis says.

Here’s the whole thing captured in a sweet video:


Image credits: Photos and video by Marvin Lewis and used with permission

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