We love our clients to the MAX and from the beginning, we insist as much as possible that their shoot be everything they want it to be. So when you book with us, the first bit of control you get is your location! The location is KEY to your shoots because most of the time it’s a place that means something to you and that is SO important to us. With that alone, you are able to convey so many emotions off the bat because you are both surrounded by a place you love together and you’re happy you’re there! Once the location is locked down and in place, we have a little secret … we go and visit the location before your shoot! Yup, so we kind of cheat and get a heads up on where we’ll be and where we’re gonna place you and get the best shots. Why do we do this? Because we’ve been in many locations where it was really TRICKY and instead of frantically looking on the spot for places to put you, we like things to move along as smooth as possible. This doesn’t only apply to shoots – it applies to wedding days as well. Actually, ESPECIALLY on wedding days. But that’s a whole other post!

When we scout out locations, we like to use each other as our “subjects” – to get an idea of how we’ll pose you and where the light will be looking best on you. And Jose really is the BEST posing.

This is what he called his “katelyn james” pose [his words! i’m so proud of him 🙂 ]

One of the top things we look for at the locations is where the light is. It’s hard for non-photographers to understand this… but light is ESSENTIAL. We have to be aware of where the sun is at all times so it’s not too harsh on our clients. Clients automatically think a bright, sunny day is the perfect day for shooting and a lot of the time that isn’t the case. Think about a harsh, sun all up in your face and you’re trying to look at the camera with eyes open… but you can’t help but squint cos that sun is ON you! Even on paper that doesn’t sound good and it doesn’t translate well to film either. Your face will be washed out from all that direct sunlight, there will be harsh shadows… ugh, just talking about it gets us upset. We don’t like it. SO when we scout out locations we go around the time the shoot will be and depending on the weather, we see where we’ll be able to place our clients for the best lighting and if it is harsh, how we can work around it to make gorgeous looking photos. This day we went scouting actually was an overcast day and the light was PERFECT. Overcast days are usually the best!

Than we start looking for the places to put you and what you’re looking for in your photos. Unique spots that’ll make your photos special, cute streets to take you down, private spots in a big populated area to make it seem like it was just the two of you. If you want specific type of photos, we’ll get that figured out too. For example –  if you want a “fall themed” shoot we see how we can get great photos of the foliage for you cos what’s prettier than foliage? We LOVED this tree and wish we were able to get our couple with this beautiful tree we had picked out.

Unfortunately, all these “Scouting” photos are from an Engagement Shoot we had been planning to shoot in Piermont, New York the weekend Hurricane Sandy came and shut down Piermont to us 🙁 we were very upset about it because it was a location that MEANT something to our couple… but at the last minute and day before our rescheduled day they picked a new location [& ssshhh! we found out our new location the day before and STILL drove past it a few hours earlier before the shoot to scout it out!] Their photos ended up looking great and they were happy so we were REAL happy. They’ll be up on the blog soon! 🙂

Though this post really isn’t particularly important for our clients, it’s to assure you that we do our absolute best to deliver – and we LOVE to scout. We love to be familiar and confident on the day of your shoot when it come’s to the location cos that really plays such a big part in the pictures. Can’t wait to see all the new locations we’ll be shooting in 2013!