Bending Light at Andrew Haydon Park | Lauren + Mike

You know what’s cool about photography? Bending light. I don’t know if that’s a real photography term, but what it means to me is that you can take available light and make it do what you want. Lauren and Mike decided that Andrew Haydon Park would be a great setting for their engagement photos and as always, I decided that sunset would be the best time of day to do it. We lucked into clear skies which meant I had very strong, directional light to play with. It’s my favourite. We strolled the park and as usual, I looked like a complete nut as I looked at backgrounds and staring into the sky as I analyzed the light constantly thinking up cool ways to photograph these two lovebirds. They rolled with it and were even so polite as to not call me out on being such a weirdo!

Because I’m a self proclaimed good guy, we ducked into the shade every so often so that they didn’t go blind staring into the sun, even though the strong light excites my photographic senses! I gave them sun breaks in the shade, but that does cool things with the light too thankfully, so those photographic senses stay tingling. Bending light in the shade is more about a way of getting really even light over the couple so that they can actually look at the camera with their eyes wide open! I tend to shoot the more “classic” photos in the shade and the more dramatic artsy stuff in the full sun. Geez, I should probably stop giving my secrets away!

My favourite moment during this shoot, outside of the human element of getting to know Lauren and Mike was right after making one of these super contrasty, artsy shots. I showed the photo to the couple on the back of my camera (which I rarely do) and Mike exclaimed that he thought the photo was going to look like crap because they were standing in an ugly, dandelion ridden field. YES! I love it when you can surprise people like that. I got super excited about how the light was contouring their hands and faces. That’s all. Simple. No photoshop tricks 🙂

So, that’s the long winded story about bending light and one element of photography that keeps me coming back. Enjoy this very warm, somewhat artsy, early summertime set of photos!