Outdoor engagement photography is one of my favorite aspects of being a wedding photographer. I get to shoot environmental portraits in beautiful places without the constraints of a wedding day. Additionally, I get to spend time with my couple getting to know them and their interests in a low-pressure environment.
A photographer has revealed how a couple's canoe accidentally capsized during a surprise proposal shoot -- but it ended up making the pictures even more romantic.
A wedding photographer who thought she had been hired to shoot a couple's proposal was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be her own proposal.
Photographers in Tennessee who want a shoot with "Italy vibes" have a difficult task. But one creative wedding photographer managed to pull it off by going to an Olive Garden.
New data has revealed that the average engagement for traditional Instagram feed posts, such as photos, has decreased by 44% since 2019 -- and this decline can be directly traced back to the app's introduction of Reels.
One of my favorite engagement photography techniques is getting up close to the subjects with a wide-angle lens. The resulting images feel alive and immersive. In this article and video, I'll be demonstrating the difference a wide-angle and a telephoto lens can make when capturing action.
If the sheer number of Instagram bots with profiles that read "buy 5,000 likes RIGHT NOW!!!" are any indication, selling fake likes, followers, and comments on Instagram is big business. But it's also risky, as one fraudster from Belarus is finding out first hand.
As a wedding and engagement photographer, you have an opportunity to work with a diverse range of people, but most of them will not be professional models. In fact, most of your clients probably feel downright uncomfortable in front of the camera, and that awkwardness can show in your photos. It’s up to you to direct your clients into poses that make them look at ease and in the moment.
When engaged couple Alyssa Snodsmith and Collin Hewett joined friend and photographer Chandler Lefever on-location for their engagement shoot, they decided to try and recreate a cute Pinterest photo that they had found online. So far so good... except the couple's attempt to create their own version of the shot didn't quite go as planned.
There's no doubt the iPhone 11 Pro's new triple camera and computer vision tech has significantly improved the smartphone's camera performance, especially in low light. But how far has the phone really come, and can the results hold up against a DSLR in the hands of a wedding photographer?
While traveling the world to teach her photography workshops, photographer Sujata Setia has been working on a long-running photo series in which she asks elderly couples who have been married for decades to pose for engagement-style photos for them to keep.
In mid-2016, Instagram started using an algorithm to order the photos you're shown, which was a big change from the simple chronological feed that had been used since the beginning. If you're not happy with the reach and engagement your photos on getting on Instagram, there's a rumored trick you may want to try.
Michigan freelance photographer Matthew Dippel was in Yosemite National Park in California recently when he spotted a man walk out to the edge of a cliff with his girlfriend and drop to one knee. Dippel captured a breathtaking photo of the proposal from his vantage point, and now he's searching for the mystery couple in his photo.
After Erin Wotherspoon and Steve Markle got engaged recently, Steve had the idea of getting creative with their engagement photos by making them 1970s-themed (an era he's obsessed with).
Charlene Trickey is a professional photographer based in Florida and the owner of Trickey Photography. When her boyfriend Travis Durham proposed to Charlene yesterday, he did it with a large tattoo on his thigh with a vintage camera and the words: "Can't Picture Myself Without You. WYMM?"
Small details can make or break the effectiveness of a pose when photographing couples. Here's a 6-minute video in which wedding photographers Sara Byrne and Phil Chester share 5 simple spot corrections that take poses from plain to pro.
There are a lot of standard and cliché poses used by photographers shooting romantic portraits of couples in love. One of the key ingredients is having two people in the frame. Photographer Malley Victoria of LaGrange, Georgia, recently shot a series of portraits of a guy in the style of a couples photo shoot.
Need some posing inspiration for an upcoming wedding or engagement portrait shoot? Photographers Sara Byrne and Phil Chester made this 2-minute video that shows some of the trendiest poses being used these days.
Last year, I had the privilege of photographing Heather and Brett Pocorobba for their engagement and wedding. I am not a traditional wedding photographer, but they wanted a real street vibe to their collection, so it was a good fit.
No matter how you feel about Instagram, if you’re reading this you know that you need it. Period. Social media can change careers. Instead of being stuck working with people in your 15-mile radius, you’re now open to the world. But if you’re reading this, you’re probably also using Instagram wrong.
Being at the right place at the right time sometimes results in the unexpected. That’s exactly what happened to me on November 7th, 2017, when my wife and I were waiting to photograph the sunset at Lookout Mountains’ Sunset Rock while returning home from a West Virginia photo adventure.
Creating and sharing your work is just the beginning, as Chase Jarvis explains in this 6-minute ‘tough love’ video for his RAW series. Building a community is the long game. Sure, it’s hard work, but it pays off.
A photographer in Arkansas made an unusual mistake this past weekend: he accidentally photographed the wrong couple's proposal and completely missed his client's special moment.
Over the past few weeks, the PetaPixel tip line has been flooded by reports of Instagram 'shadow banning' accounts. This practice, ostensibly limited to business accounts, is destroying engagement on these photographer's profiles.
Photographer Dale Sharpe is a determined guy. It took two rings and two trips to the arctic circle, but he finally got engaged to the one person he loves, capturing the epic moment on camera while the northern lights danced above their heads.
Fans of the movie La La Land will love this creative engagement shoot. In a tribute to Hollywood romance and the romance between bride-to-be Ellen Wleklinski and her betrothed Corey Collins, photographer Marlies Hartmann recreated some of the Oscar-nominated movie's most popular scenes in real life.
My name is Paul Fehr, and I recently proposed to my girlfriend, Ale, in a photography darkroom. Here's how I did it.
The idea of standing in front of a camera is terrifying to most photographers, but when it comes to your own engagement and wedding photography, you have no choice, right? Well... maybe not. Toronto-based photographer Navy Nhum recently managed to capture a great engagement session with her sweetheart all by their lonesome.
When astrophotography enthusiast Stephen King of Yakima, Washington, asked his then-girlfriend Andrea to marry him recently, he did so in a creative and unusual way: with a 360-degree night sky photo inside a Google Cardboard VR viewer.
Instagram boasts over 400 million users now and has never been more popular. But even though user growth charges forward, the interaction rate by users appears to be trending downward. A new study reports a 33% drop in Likes and Comments over a one year period.
Photographer John Myers was photographing a surprise proposal recently when a strange thing happened: he was photobombed by an alpaca. Okay, it wasn't so strange, given they were on an alpaca farm, but the resulting shots still made for a fun (if not unique) engagement session.
I rarely tell the stories of my couples on my blog, as I am more of a visual storyteller rather than a writer. But I felt this one was important.
Here's the story of how I recently proposed to my girlfriend using the back of my film camera.
All the numbers have been pointing upwards for Instagram. In fact, a recent analysis shows that Instagram will be used by 1 in 3 person, in the US, by 2020. With 400 million active users today, it is the only platform where people exclusively take and share visual content and nothing else.
A man in Houston, Texas, is being heavily criticized this week after causing traffic on a major freeway to come to a standstill while he proposed to his girlfriend -- all for "priceless" photos and a video that were shared on Instagram and Facebook.
I’ve often looked at engagement shoots, and there are generally two types. One is when a couple are already engaged so is more of a pre-wedding shoot, and one is where someone is brave enough to invite a photographer along while he or she actually pops the question. The latter is rarer, and it made me wonder if I could get a friend to be there when I did it. The more I thought about it the more it didn’t fit in with what I had originally planned.
A couple in Chicago recently posed for an adorable engagement photo shoot in which they recreated the opening love scene from the 1961 Disney movie "101 Dalmatians."
Love someone who loves photography, and planning to pop the question soon? Check out this homemade ring box Matt Chalker made for his photographer girlfriend recently. It opens and closes like the aperture on a camera, and it took about 50-60 hours to make.
San Francisco-based writer David Sikorski was getting tired of the lovey-dovey photos dominating his Facebook feed, so he partnered with photographer Kristina Bakrevski for a photo shoot with his own "one true love": the burrito. The duo trio traveled around San Francisco and shot stereotypical engagement photos showing Sikorski's intense love for his burrito, which was dressed beautifully in foil.
Singapore-based photographer Mezame Shashin-ka is a big fan of incorporating science fiction themes into his photography. Recently an engaged couple approached him with a special request: they wanted a Star Wars-themed pre-wedding photo shoot that would be "out of this world." Shashin-ka delivered.