We scheduled an engagement shoot about a month ago and as the last week count down began, the weather started scaring us. Sunshine for 3 minutes, rain for 5, cloudy and calm for the next 2 minutes and rinse and repeat process begins again.

On Friday we decided that we might not be going ahead as the weather just looked miserable and the forecast showed a huge downpour, but nevertheless, I kept monitoring the weather in the surrounding areas up till Saturday evening to see what the plan will be.

While I do live in Dublin, my mother lives in Longford, so I returned home for the weekend and basically started monitoring the forecast for the surrounding areas to figure out if there’s a good area we can salvage and still proceed with the engagement shoot.

I always find that scheduling engagement shoots is the hardest part of the shoot! Have to make sure 3 people are the same place at the same time. Re-scheduling for the following weeks is not an option. I have other bookings and most couples have weeks booked out in advance for appointments and other arrangements to get ready for their big wedding day.

And if you really want to get great engagement photos, you need to aim for sunrise or sunset, and let’s face it, no couple will get excited about taking photos at 5AM during the summer and their level of excitements at that time of the morning will still be asleep. Plus, factor in the driving time, make up, getting ready and coffee! Don’t forget the coffee!! And that tends to add on the hours and you’re virtually only getting only a few hours of sleep.

OK, OK, you might not need to be bang on the dot as the sun rises, but it definitely helps to do the shoot early while the sun is low in the horizon and we can get some pretty and flattering photos.

So after checking out all the surrounding areas, Derrycassin Woods was our first choice, but it can be a challenging place to get a nice picture, a great location during a clear sunny day as the sun breaks through the tree’s, but if its overcast, it can provide very flat and boring photos.

Caroline and Johnny live in Kilashee, so a walk along the water canal would also make for a some interesting backdrops. Especially with a few bridges and the walks giving you some good leading lines to your subjects. Another idea was to go to places like Lough Rinn or Kilronan Castles and just walks around the grounds, but Derrycassin Woods was the closes, so we ended up making that our location at the time.

In the end, the weather forecast was most favourable towards Lough Key Forest Park, it has a nice open area for backlit portraits and if worst comes to worst, we have a whole forest to hide inside, I did a shot in Lough Key Forest park before and it was raining very hard, in the morning and a light drizzle by the time we got there. The tree’s did a great job at sheltering me and the couple from rain.

Once we had the location and the date sorted, taking the photos is the easy part :) You just have to interact with your couples and have fun. I always find engagement photos are A LOT more fun if you get your couples to mess around and interact with each other.
For example, running, jumping, lifting, rolling, biting and etc.

While the actions themselves might not be flattering or attractive, it’s the few seconds before or after the run, push or a pull that gets the couple laughing or looking at each other in a way that’s nearly impossible to pose and stage (unless their actors of course).

A huge part of the engagement shoot is to trust your photographer. Those exercises help me break the ice and get the engaged to forget about my scary camera that’s constantly taking pictures all the time.