Hudson Valley Engagement Photography {Carrie + Matt}


August 16th 2021
Hudson Valley Engagement Photography {Carrie + Matt}

Engagement Photography Hudson Valley

First off if you’re looking for an engagement photographer take a look at my [engagement photography portfolio](http://www.davebrownphotography.com/Hudson Valley-Engagement-Photographer.aspx).

So I had a another engagement shoot with a couple transported to Hudson Valley from Pittsburgh.  Say hi to Carrie and Matt.  They were a great couple to work with, and we had a ton of fun walking around Hudson Valley taking some nice relaxed candids.  They are planning their whole wedding here in Hudson Valley, while the actual wedding is going to be in Pittsburgh.  Imagine how hard that would be.  They fly back every couple of weeks, and have a whirlwind of things to get done.  20 minutes for this, 15 minutes for that.  It’s got to be hard

.  Good thing they are both so easy going.

I wanted to take a shot that didn’t have too much life to it to begin with and really work it into something cool.  I have yet to really work a texture into some of my engagement shots just yet, and I thought this would be a good opportunity.  I like the way it turned out.  The original image was just a little too sterile for me.  I can’t wait to work on some of my favorites from this shoot, because they are portfolio worthy for sure.  I’m sure I’ll be writing a post about those shots soon enough, but until then you’re just going to have to wait.  I know, patience is a virtue that I don’t have either.

Hudson Valley Engagement Photography can be a challenge for this reason, because some of the places that are fun to shoot, also can have a bit of a sterile feel to them.  I believe that engagement photography should be warm and inviting.  Unless you’re going for something that’s more on the fine art side of things.  In that case go for black and white, or low saturation shots.  Got a few of those shots from this shoot, that I’m really pleased with how they turned out.  In those cases off camera flash is your best friend because you can get really dynamic looking lighting that will have a much more unique feel to it.

So this shot has a lot going on with it.  Obviously there are a couple texture layers.  Again here, play with the blending mode on the texture layers to see what has the best effect for your shot.  In my case it usually ends up on overlay, or vivid light.  Those seem to work the best for me, but again experiment around and see what works for you.  Another thing is that you can invert the texture layer first and then cycle through all the blending modes again to see if that changes the dynamic of the texture.  With some textures it won’t change anything, but with others it can be that missing piece to a photograph.  Again there is a gradient overlay, and a color fill layer to get that almost light yellow tone to the picture.  I also played with split toning this image in lightroom a bit.  It was a subtle effect, but it added to the overall end color result of the shot.

Anyways I hope ya like it!

-Dave