Wild Birdseed Hill

Thomas and I photographed a couple of engagement sessions for his friends recently and it's been quite fun, but I'm also learning that it takes some convincing to get people into random fields and patches of wilderness. Even if it's not far off the beaten path, people seem to picture manicured lawns and grandeur houses as the best backdrops for photographs. While those can definitely work, when it comes to portrait photography (even simple outfit photos for a blog!) the background is secondary, so something basic and even wild works quite well. Fields like this one, which Thomas calls "wild birdseed hill" even allow you to play with foreground--placing yellow flowers in front of the lens to float like orbs in the finished pictures. It's all a learning process; figuring out how to communicate your vision and make people comfortable and achieve the images they desire--it's definitely good that the pressure is minimal since we're only photographing as a favor and in the end you just want people to be happy with their pictures.