Hidden Valley Drive Engagement Shoot, aka Trek through Philly's Jurassic Park
With mother nature absolutely refusing to cooperate the last couple months, it was hard to actually get this shoot done. But with a little patience, and finally some weather we could (barely) work with, we set out to get this one in the books.
Mariah and Bill are my last wedding of the 2017 season (barring any of my photographer friends being indisposed and me coming to the rescue! no bride gets left unhappy in my book). They are planning a destination wedding in New Orleans, themed after the cult classic movie Labyrinth. So of course, I'm counting down the days along with them as their day is going to be the cherry on top for my 2017 wedding season!
Mariah told me she wanted to do an engagement shoot as it is included with all my wedding packages. Unlike the urban environments I usually frequent, she wanted to do hers in a more natural setting. Of course, Philadelphia's Wissahickon Park was first on both are list of possible locations.
Check out that outfit change though!
Luckily, the weather held up and it was a GORGEOUS day. It also happened to be Father's day as well! So after having brunch with my younger brother and my dad (our annual outing for Father's Day at Lucha Cartel in Old City), I made my way to Valley Green Inn in Wissahickon.
Truth be told, I hadn't been to the Wissahickon Trails in YEARS, the last time being with my Dad and siblings as a kid, no less. So I was personally excited to see one of the places I frequented as a child again.
I met up with Bill and Mariah, who was rocking her favorite Labyrinth Tshirt (see the ast blog post, its pretty awesome!), and we set out on our hike. After a few minutes of hiking, we all realized at the same time that the humidity, for whatever reason, was making things a little.....toasty, to say the least. We bore the sweltering heat though, and marched on. We were DETERMINED to finish this session, regardless of how in her feelings mother nature was that day!
We tried to chase the rays of sun through the trees to get some great hair light on Mariah, but once again, mother nature was (literally) throwing shade. What do you do when there's no sunlight? Make your own! I brought my Adorama Flashpoint Zoom speedlight, transmitter, S-mount bracket, reflector and CTO gel specifically so I can make my own golden rays of sun in case the weather didn't cooperate (darn you beautiful clouds!)
After trudging on for about 30 mins, we got some awesome results but realized we could get better. We were looking for a specific covered bridge to get a certain shot, and realized it was on the other side of the creek, which was a decidedly more difficult trek. But looking at these shots, you just cant argue with it being worth it!
Once we crossed to the other side of the creek, the rougher terrain rewarded you with one awesome photo op after another. Eventually, we had to ignore the rest because sunlight was fading fast and none of us had flashlights - or anything to ward off any animals waiting in the dark!
We started to joke that this was Jurassic Park....a lot of the terrain reminded us of different scenes from the movie series. The logs Ellie jumped over running from velociraptors, the metal bridge in the pteradactyl compound, the river where the team got chased by a spinosaurus..."clever girl" became the quote of the day in everybody's best british Muldoon accent.
All in all, it ended being an AMAZING shoot, and looking forward to finishing off the wedding season on a high note with these two!
Did you REALLY think I was going to let them get away without doing a dance shot??