many months prior to catie and michael doing their hunterdon county nj mini engagement session with me, catie first reached out to me without a set date or venue for their wedding… and i am glad they did. not only because i’ve had several inquiries for their fall of 2019 wedding date since, and not just because they are getting married at an awesome landmark venue location, hotel du village, but because they are super awesome.
i know that their wedding is going to be a great time and that they are on the road to a long, happy marriage just by how they handled the mini engagement session that i photographed for them.
it was hilariously bad conditions.
with the extreme humidity of the last half of the summer, i thought ahead and put my camera gear outside for about 20 minutes prior to catie and michael’s arrival to my house in order to allow the gear to acclimate to the humidity and avoid having issues with the lenses fogging up. despite all that time outside, when catie and michael arrived, my cameras were still fogging up relentlessly. the forecast had quickly changed from being fine to a storm coming. the radar was showing a rainstorm quickly approaching and although we were only doing a mini engagement session, my cameras weren’t cooperating fast enough. in over 13 years of professional photography, i had only experienced this one time before until this summer, but it took close to 40 minutes for my cameras to be useable the day of catie and michael’s hunterdon county nj mini engagement session which is absolutely crazy.
catie and michael were patient and understanding of the situation as the clouds got darker creating more pressure on our situation, but they just rolled with it. with my cameras finally starting to clear up we made a game plan which quickly changed as we walked and the faint sound of thunder could be heard and glimpses of lighting could be seen. as we started taking pictures, i had to continuously stop to wipe my lenses from the moisture. trying to work quickly to finish just in time to get out of the rain, it wasn’t just the humidity slowing us down.
mosquitoes the size of baby pterodactyls were everywhere!
in over 8 years of living here, i have never experienced anything like this! they were insane, unabating and distracting. most people feel a bit awkward during portrait sessions, but nothing like the pressure of a big storm, a lens that keeps fogging up and both the photographer and the couple having to sporadically smack mosquitoes off of themselves to really interrupt the flow of things. the conditions here hilariously bad, but what was so awesome was how catie and michael handled it all. this tells me they are going to be great at being married! eventhough catie left with huge bug bites all over her and the session probably seemed like a total disaster… the pics tell a different story. i’ve never had to use ninja skills in quite this fashion, but they definitely came in handy!
i do love me some storm light though!
i had to include this little series— pretty much sums up the engagement session!
based on how catie and michael handled their hunterdon county nj mini engagement session– fogged up lenses, quickly approaching thunderstorm, baby pterodactyl mosquitoes — i know their hotel du village wedding is going to be fantastic and am really looking forward to capturing their day for them!
