Tuesday, November 16, 2010

On Engagement Photos

I sometimes wish A and I were doing engagement photos. We have all of 5 pictures of the two of us together, and the one that isn't god-awful is mediocre at best.

Oh! there is one that I really like:


... but more in that artsy "people walking away from a camera" way. Plus I love that jacket. But I digress.

With my daily dose of wedding porn come a few engagement shoots. I look at all the happy couples and think about how if we had pictures like that we could send one to my mom to put in the announcement she's sending to the town paper, and use them on our in-progress wedding website, and we could get one with us on our tandem bike with flags hanging from it saying "you're invited" to use for our awesome postcard invitations.

But engagement photos are not in the budget. And A hates posing for pictures and would just not be into it. And it's really just not us (What is us, you ask? Going out on our own so we have to take pictures of each other. Sigh.)

It's times like this that I have to remind myself that I see so many engagement photos not because all that many people get professional engagement photos, but because photos in general, and especially professional ones, play well on the Internet. People like looking at pretty, well-done pictures. And so that's what I see. I don't see a million "I didn't get engagement photos! Here they're not!" posts on forums and blogs because, well, yawn.

It also helps that, the more engagement shoots I see, the less I like them. Maybe this is just my subconscious trying to protect me from feeling bad for not getting them. But also, they're always uber-posed. She leaning her head on his shoulder, looking into the camera soulfully, as he looks away. They staring into each other's eyes holding each other a tad bit awkwardly. They sitting on an oh-so-put-together picnic spread. Thanks but no thanks.

We do need pictures of us. But we need to get them them from going out and having fun with friends with cameras, so the smiles are real and the situation actually happened (I wonder if those couples even get to eat the picnics they set out as backdrops). They'll come, slowly, with time. And I'll get some of my better friends to bring their cameras when we see them for New Year's.

2 comments:

  1. I randomly dropped in from APW and I feel compelled to comment!!
    Have you already hired your wedding photographer?? If not, consider looking for one that includes the engagement shoot in your package, that way you can get the best of both worlds!
    Anyway, glad to hear you're joining the facebook group, pretty sure we're having drinks this saturday!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh yay my first comment!

    We're asking a friend, who's also an amateur photographer and brings his camera to every party he goes to, to bring his camera to the wedding and take (mostly candid, but ideally including some of that first-look moment) pictures as his gift. And then we'll buy the prints.

    This saturday (and the remaining weekends in November) are no good :( But I'm so in for drinks starting in December!

    ReplyDelete