Alyssa and Dylan
I had a beautiful summer engagement session with Alyssa and Dylan at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
It was a special time of year for me, because my first child, a daughter, Charlotte, was born just the week before and it was a wonderful but surreal time of my life. This engagement session was one of a string of photo sessions for me and I wasn’t sure what life was going to be like as a dad, but going on these engagement sessions gave me a bout of normalcy even though I came back home to a much different life than the one I had before.
Milwaukee Art Museum
For those of you who don’t know, the Milwaukee Art Museum is the most visible and most iconic attraction in Milwaukee and it’s a fantastic place to get your engagement portraits done. I’ve also gone here for senior sessions and wedding day portraits and it works great for all three types of sessions.
By far and away, the most striking part of the building is the wings. The top of the building is shaped like a giant ship mast and it has wings that resemble sails that come out or fold up depending on the museum’s preference.
The first place I go to when I take photos at the museum is the foot bridge, the Reiman Pedestrian Bridge, that connects the museum to the museum center park and Wisconsin Avenue.
This is such a great place to take portraits, because you can see the wings right behind you in the background and the white foot bridge gives you incredible leading lines in the composition of the pictures.
Another of my favorite spots is exactly under the foot bridge where there is some wide steps and more leading lines of the underside of the bridge. This is also flanked by a wider view of the Milwaukee city in the background.
I love this spot, because you can get the most dramatic scenes along with dramatic skies.
I’ve photographed at the Milwaukee Art Museum so much that I continually look for ways to challenge myself and one spot that I really tried to emphasize during Alyssa and Dylan’s session was the lakeside of the building and perpendicular to one of the wings.
Here I got some of my favorite shots ever from this spot as Dylan hugged Alyssa from behind and the two swayed back and forth. I loved how they really got into this pose and looked carefree and natural.
One note if you’re going to have a session here is that I still haven’t quite figured out how to advise clients on wardrobe changes. Especially during the summer, everything in the area is going to be closed around golden hour including the museum and nearby coffee shops. Usually, by the time we get to a wardrobe change in the summer, we’ll be looking at 6:30 or 7 pm.
We ran into this problem with Alyssa and Dylan, so eventually they just changed in their car. Until I find a shop or building with open bathrooms, I’ll be telling my couples beforehand that if they want to change they should expect to have to do that in their cars.
On the other hand, it’s such a popular spot with other photographers that I might just ask the next photographer I see there what they do for wardrobe changes!
A casual flair at Veterans Park
After our wardrobe change we walked close to the lake and strolled along the Oak Leaf Trail, heading up to the south end of Veterans Park. It’s a short walk to the park and I knew it had some more outdoor nature spots that I’d want to try.
I loved how these photos turned out, because Alyssa and Dylan had changed into jeans and green shirts. The green of their shirts really matched with the grass and the trees of the park. There was also a small hill that I had them walk across, which allowed me to erase all the distractions of the scenery and just have complete sky in the background.
On the other side, there were a few skyscrapers from downtown in the background, including the Northwestern Mutual Building and I framed those behind Alyssa and Dylan. This is my favorite part of Veterans Park. Whether it’s a senior session, a wedding session or an engagement session I love this skyline view of Milwaukee in the background. And, if you time it right you can also get the sunset in the background. From here the skyline will be pretty high up on the horizon, so in order to see the sunset you have to get there a half hour or an hour earlier than normal.
Finding the right pose
The interesting thing about portrait sessions is that no matter how many years I’ve taken portraits of people, you never really know which poses will work best.
Over the years, I’ve tweaked my poses and how I explain them to people. I’ve found new poses that I’ve fallen in love with and other poses that I eventually realized I didn’t like as much. But, the interesting thing about poses is that every pose doesn’t work for every couple and the unique challenge with each new couple is finding the poses that actually make them shine the most, the poses that make them look the best and feel the best.
Sometimes, this differs just because of body type. For example, some women are much shorter and smaller than their soon-to-be husbands so poses where he’s enveloping his soon-to-be bride or lifting her up works really well. Other couples are more even in height or build, so you need to find something else that works well, like walking hand in hand.
Another challenge for posing, is finding the right pose that brings the most happiness out of the couple. The most beautiful pose in the world is really worthless if the the bride or groom feel awkward and aren’t confident and smiling.
For Alyssa and Dylan, it took me awhile to find a pose where both of them had the most fun and one of them was when Dylan lifted Alyssa up in his arm, cradling her like a baby. Another was of him lifting her over her shoulder, fireman carry. For any strong guy, setting him up in a situation where he can show off his strength really will make him feel confident and have a lot of fun.
Doing that pose once or twice can then open them up to be happier for the next set of poses and the rest of the session.
Verse of the day: “I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”
Psalms 121:1
