Ever since I was a little girl, two of the things I’ve been passionate about are animals and photography. I’m lucky enough to be a photographer for a living and one of my hobbies (okay, a very large part of my life 🙂 ) is showing dogs. Yes, like you see on tv at Westminster lol. While I definitely shoot pictures of pets and the occasional dog at a wedding, those two aspects of my life rarely intersect. That is until I got to shoot the mountain engagement session of Kacie and Pearce. Kacie is a professional dog handler and is someone I know well from dog shows. In fact, she showed my dog, Mabel, for me and won her championship.

So I was very excited when I was asked to shoot Kacie and Pearce’s wedding. The wedding itself is taking place next year, but we did the engagement shoot now and took advantage of the beautiful fall foliage in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Kacie had a clear idea of dramatic images she wanted with a beautiful sunset and colorful trees. We watched the weather and the leave forecast. When it looked promising, we picked our date for the shoot. The day before, I scouted the location at the same time as our shoot would be the next day. I found the exact angle I would use to capture the shot Kacie wanted with the sun streaming through the leaves. It was going to be perfect!

On the day of the shoot, I met Kacie and Pearce and took them to the location. We were all marveling at how beautiful it was. Mother Nature was playing her role perfectly! I set up the shot and posed Kacie and Pearce. Then literally as I was pressing the shutter to take the first image, the sun went behind a cloud and never came back out. As anyone who lives in the mountains can tell you, the weather can and will change on a dime and couldn’t care less what the forecast says!

So, we regrouped and ditched the dramatic sunset idea. Instead, I shot mainly what I call “candid portraits” of Kacie and Pearce: guidance and posing from me but with the focus on capturing the relationship between the two of them. The results were a mountain engagement session that was authentic and real. Who needed the Pinterest sunset shot? We’ll save that for the wedding instead hopefully!

Stay tuned for pictures from the wedding coming in November, 2019!