This week my former roommate Matt and his girlfriend Emily came to Grand Rapids, MI. He called me up earlier in the week asking if I was interested in photographing their portrait on the beach in Lake Michigan. My thoughts were " Why in the hell would the two of those want portraits done on Lake Michigan. We just got 4 inches of snow (not a lot of course) and its cold out. This is generally the slow time of the season for a photographer."
Of course I agreed and said yes. I was more than excited to see them again. Matt and Emily have been together since sophmore year of college and I think everyone that knows them knew they would get married. It was only a matter of when. According to Matt, two things had to happen before he were to propose.
1. Graduate from Grand Valley
2. Get a job
Well both of these tasks were completed a few months ago so all of us were asking when is he going to pop the question. I was in the loop a month ago knowing he was shopping for a ring. He told me a bunch of stores but the one store that caught my attention was a store that sells rings with a teal colored box...Tiffany's for those of you who don't know. He never gave me a direct yes or no and all that was mentioned was sometime soon he would propose...
So Saturday December 4 rolls around and we meet up for lunch and drive out to Lake Michigan/Kirk Park which is twenty minutes away from Allendale. We arrive and its cold, but most of the snow had melted. The three of us walk down to the beach and start photographing and this is what I started off with...
During the photoshoot, my off camera flash and 60" umbrella kept getting knocked over by the wind. All the photographers that are reading this are probably having a heart attack over this. I will be getting sandbags VERY VERY SOON. The equipment was ok, I was more than confident with that. It was during the session that Matt said " Hey LaVere, can't you just mount the flash on top of the camera or something?"
My response....No Lipsky, I would prefer not to and I have the situation under control, my equipment is OK, and no worries!" I continued to photograph them a little more until I grew sick of the shot and suggested maybe they sit on the beach facing the water while I photograph them off in the corner so-to-speak.
I was setting up my lightstand in the sand and getting my exposure and poses set until Matt suggests "Hey LaVere, instead of sitting down could he stand up instead?"
It was at this point in time that I realized everything was coming together and he WAS going to propse to her. All my lighting that I am so picky about went out the window and I knew I had to just get the shot regardless of how I envisioned my "portrait" to work. As I was photographing "test shots" I overheard his conversation to Emily about how when they first started dating and she would come visit, they would go to the beach...this just reconfirmed my theory he is going to propose so I continued to photograph them and long and behold he gets down on one knee to Emily holding the teal colored box...
She of course said yes. The whole event was great. I knew one day these two would get married. Time to start planning the bachelor party...
