What to do when you and your fiance have off-the-hook personalities and want to show the world what an awesome match you are together? Exactly! You have Gaelan Kelly illustrate the two of you into your very own wedding crest. Gaelan is an über-talented artist that has a knack for nailing the details that visually describe your interests and expressions. He’s even great at illustrating portraits simply using the subject’s voice.

For this assignment, Gaelan used a recent engagement portrait of Nick and Kelsey, both pilots and all-around fun people (have a peek at their engagements here and here). What follows is the progression from the photograph through his initial sketches, penning and, finally, the watercoloring. What a final product!

Hit up Gaelan to get your very own illustrated portrait crest for your wedding!  Use it on your save-the-dates and invitations. Use elements from it for other printed items like your table place cards and thank you cards. You can find more info such as pricing and other examples over at his website here.

That’s crazy-cool, right? Post your thoughts below! -Sean

A few days after their first engagement mini-session in Seattle, we all met up at the Auburn Airport where Nick and Kelsey are becoming flight instructors to finish. Airplanes and airports are a big part of these pilot’s day-to-day so it’s only fitting to include it in their shots. Even better, we had access to a historical Beech aircraft that we wheeled out onto the runway. Classy! After this session, we used one of the photos to make a custom wedding crest illustration. Really looking forward to their upcoming garden wedding.

Engagement sessions should be more than a collection of poses and a pleasant background. When we go out to photograph a couple prior to their wedding, we use this opportunity to capture their personalities and strong emotional connection. If possible, we integrate locations that are important and meaningful which lends to more relaxed and natural shots.

Kelsey and Nick are both fond of Seattle and skilled pilots so we broke their session into two parts. For the first part, we started at Pike Place Market and flowed into the surrounding areas including a nearby park that was almost pure yellow from Fall leaves.

We ended this first part at the International Fountain in Seattle Center. I’ll post part two shortly.

To prepare for their upcoming Wild Rose wedding, we spent some time with the camera at the Olympic Sculpture park. These engagement sessions are an invaluable time to loosen up and become more comfortable being photographed, to talk more about the upcoming wedding and the people that will be involved and just getting to know each other a little more. We spend the whole day with our clients so it’s great to know at least a few things about them!

The Olympic Sculpture Park is one of Seattle’s gems. It terraces down the hill to the waterfront in a zig-zag. On this evening, we had soft light and patchy cloud cover with blue sky poking through. Towards the end, while we were down at the water, the sun poked out and provided a few interesting silhouette shots.

What started out as portraits became an engagement shoot when I found out that they were secretly engaged and had plans to elope. I first recommended that we grab what was left of the maple tree color near the waterfront Ivars. So much color and energy! We then walked across the street to the abandoned Seattle Trolly tracks and leafless trees lining them. A black and white rendering with the trees behind make for a striking composition. Train tracks can be a cliche, but it can be done tastefully with a telephoto and use of urban features such as passerbys and cars to integrate the couple into a scene.

We hopped in the car and drove up to Pike Place Market. They were out-of-towners and it doesn’t get more Seattle than this. Chantel is a Starbucks employee so we had to stop by the first-ever Starbucks location in the market. Back in the car, we drove just a little north to the Olympic Sculpture Park on the waterfront, one of my favorte Seattle areas with so many diverse photographic opportunities. I had made a mental note weeks prior that I wanted to photograph a couple in front of the massive concrete stares to really boost the artistic quality of the portrait with repeating lines. I really like what we got, but I do intend to try this location again with a much larger telephoto, perhaps a 400mm or larger to really compress the scene. Still, I’m not complaining about what we got!

At the top of those stairs is a perch that overlooks the street and, when shot from the side looking East, lends to a great composition to include the Space Needle and surrounding buildings around the couple. It’s a neat juxtaposition! We did some final shots at this location on the stairs then drove for final shots at the famous Kerry Park to catch some of the last light of the day. Congratulations to such nice and fun people. I had a great time guys!

It was great to see Sara again after our initial meeting at a family shoot many years ago. Her mother is a great friend to my wife and me. When Sara and Kevin made wedding plans, they hired us to be their photographers (see wedding here) and we recently got together for engagement portraits at the University of Washington and Alki Beach.

The university has been a popular place as of late largely due to the amazing cherry trees and interesting architecture. By this time of the year, however, the cherry blossoms are fading but we managed to find a few remaining colorful trees. We also explored the North side of campus including a few nice, new buildings I’ve never seen before. Last stop on campus was the spiral staircase on Campus Parkway then we drove to West Seattle for a view of the Puget Sound and city.

I’ve shot a few engagement sessions at Alki and was recommending the beach area to the north for Sara and Kevin. When the tide is low there is a bit of sand below the rock wall, but we arrived to a high tide. Still, we managed to find an area with sand and a great view of Seattle. Because we were in shade, I broke out my 12″ beauty dish with 30 degree spot attachment to add some fill. Champaign ended the session in style.

Here’s what my clients thought of their session…

Sara:

One of my favorite parts of the shoot was when Sean asked us if we were comfortable kissing in front of the camera. We both quickly answered in the affirmative, although it’s not like we had really ever done it before! After testing it out, I think we kissed and giggled the entire way through the shoot. I swear, it felt like my smile was getting bigger and bigger as we went along, it’s no wonder we couldn’t get serious!

Honestly, I know the photos and the experience are things we will cherish for a lifetime! I am sure everyone says that but Sean truly did capture the love and affection we have for each other, and the partnership that we value so dearly. It was fun, relaxed, but we also accomplished so much in our session! That’s a testament to Sean’s fantastic professional skill and artistic eye!

Kevin:

Having never done a shoot, I was a little nervous and unsure about what to do once the bulb started flashing. However, Sean made it so easy, and as soon as we got going it was better than I imagined – even when we had an audience of curious passer-bys in the background! Sean had some great locations at U of W already in mind and we bounded around campus seamlessly, chatting and stopping anytime an inspirational backdrop caught his eye. When we got to Alki things got a little loose; before we knew it we were popping champagne on the beach, I was leaping over Seattle and we were gallivanting around in the freezing Puget Sound – enjoying every minute of it!

Sean:

I can’t ask for better clients! Looking forward to their Seattle Maritime Event Center wedding down on the waterfront! Become a ‘fan’ of Affinity Photography on Facebook to get updates on Sara and Kevin’s upcoming wedding!

Full gallery at: http://smu.gs/kmEEe7

So, what’s your favorite photo from this session? Have you been to these locations? Comment below! Thanks!

We are a firm believer that the best portraits come from sessions where our clients are comfortable and playful. Sometimes, this means meeting with them in a familiar location. For Danielle and Michael’s engagements, I trekked up to their neck of the woods, about an hour north of Seattle, to Sedro Woolley.

Danielle had a spot picked out based on some shots she’d seen from a friend taken in the same area. The location was an abandoned mental health hospital farm. As you can imagine, this place was repleat with large, old doors halfway off their hinges, tons of patterns and windows, broken out concrete and a bit of hilarious grafitti. We made the most of the place then drove on to a private pond with bridges, trout, waterfalls, cherry trees and an island– a portrait photographer’s paradise.

We photographed their wedding, check it out here.

Allison and Greg are coming from San Francisco for their upcoming wedding and we met up last weekend to do some portraits. They weren’t too familiar with Seattle, but knew that they wanted to include many of the town’s icons such as Pike Place Market, the Space Needle and a quick walk through the University of Washington campus.

We set the date, they purchased flights and I crossed all of my fingers that the weather would cooperate. Seattle isn’t as rainy as people believe but, what we do have is a ton of cloudy, gray and misting days. The weather report for the weekend cycled between ‘partially cloudy’ and ‘rainy’.

I was happy to see that the weather roulette wheel stopped on good weather including a few sunbreaks. Candice and I meet up with Allison and Greg at the corner of Pike and Pine, the center of a busy Pike Place Market. Portratis started with some crosswalk shots across 1st ave out to the Puget Sound including the market sign, then we moved inside the market and finally out to Post Alley.

We left the market and made a quick stop at Seattle’s famous Kerry Park to grab a few shots of the city. The view here puts the Seattle Space needle front-and-center and large against the rest of the city. On a clear day, Mount Rainier can be seen off to the right.

Finally, we drove over to the University of Washington campus. The dozens (hundreds?) of cherry trees were in full bloom and we weren’t the only photographers. We found great spots in the quad including nice brick paths, more huge cherry trees and some of the campus buildings in the background. To finish off the session, we shot a few areas down by my Electrical Engineering building and Drumhiller Fountain.

Brandon and I were once neighbors and we became friends after a few dinner and TV nights. I met up with him and David at the University of Washington for some portraits in the Quad and Red Square with the wonderful Suzzallo Library in the background.

If you ever need a break from the big city, check out the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. The paths wander back and forth, take you past a waterfall, through an alpine rock garden and a very private Japanese garden loop. The first photo has Annie and Jason lounging together on a large rock in these Japanese Gardens. They also brought their football for some rough contact tackling in the grassy areas up above near the visitor’s center.