Shona & Christopher
Location
june 9, 2021
photography
Cliffs by Okanagan Lake
Celebrating their engagement with a romantic stroll by the lake.
Neil Slattery
Best Light is Just Before a Storm
To think this session almost didn't happen.
I'm hyper aware of the light, and as such, it's always on my mind. I shouldn't, but I do check the weather forecasts on the days I'm scheduled to photograph a wedding or engagement session. I remember the forecast for this day. I also remember thinking, I'm going to get an email from this couple any minute now. Well it wasn't an email, but a text from Shona.
"Hi Neil. Just wondering if we should postpone as it looks like they're calling for rain later on?"
Why oh why do people conclude that the prospect of rain is something to be afraid of? I don't think I begged, but I pleaded with her not to postpone. Even if it did rain, the images would be amazing. Well they went for it. Thankfully. It didn't rain, though. Not until we were finished. We did manage to capture some dramatic skies later on. And the wind did an awesome job of bringing the still images to life. Actually I have to give credit to Shona and Christopher; they brought life to every photo.
If you care to see what a wedding in the rain looks like, check out Lynn and Gavin's elopement.
This place offers the
Best light for engagement photos in the Okanagan
...and it was on the verge of raining
As a working photographer who has traveled to a number of beautiful locations around the world, I can confidently say that the Okanagan has some difficult light to work in. On top of that, there aren’t very many spots left where photographers can take advantage of the kind of light provided by shade.
As a consequence, many photographers prefer to work in the very early morning, or late afternoon. As you can guess, this is because the sun is lower on the horizon. The quality of the light is dramatically better. I mean, it’s on a completely different level.
Without examples, it would be hard to convince a bride and groom to leave their meal for a ten-minute photo session during sunset. Thankfully I have worked with many willing couples, and as such, I now have a number of examples to show.
In this example, the location, because of the position of the sun, isn’t ideal, even for those later times of day. There is a big but here, because when the sky is overcast, this location offers some of the best light in all of the Okanagan.
As the time approached for me to meet up with Shona and Christopher, I received a text expressing their concern for the looming cloud cover. Shona wondered if they should postpone. I told her that it would be beautiful, and that if it rained we could reschedule, but we should meet anyway, just in case. I think they are glad they didn’t postpone. The light was some of the best I have been lucky enough to experience. Of course, it helps a million percent that Shona is an absolute beauty – with a sense of humor to match.
