Photoshoot fun
A couple of months ago, me and my boys had a little family photo shoot with the legend that is Harry Michael. It got me thinking about practice shoots, more commonly called engagement shoots and why they’re so important.
We started out our shoot a little uneasy. We’d been really busy that day, actually on the beach and it was past Ziggy’s bedtime by the time we met Harry. All the ingredients for a disaster to be honest. We’d not met Harry before and were unsure how things would go. Harry put us completely at ease, chatting us up a storm and basically accepting us all in our tired and irrational (toddler) states.
After just 10 mins or so, we were feeling more relaxed about being photographed and fell into the groove a little. Harry had so much patience and guidance and when we saw the photos we were absolutely blown away with what he managed to capture given all those ingredients I mentioned.
Obviously Harry is an exceptional photographer. And after having this experience, I really would recommend having a shoot ahead of your wedding. Even if it’s not with your wedding photographer, getting more comfy with being papped could make the wedding day less daunting. It also means that in those precious snippets of time where you do have couples shots (however natural you want them to be), you settle into them more quickly and miss less of your wedding party.
Harry says, “engagement shoots are a great way to remove that doubt and fear of being in front of a camera on your wedding day, but mostly, it’s a great chance to get some more awesome photos! For all destination weddings, I include a 90 minute pre-wedding shoot which can either be a portrait session or coverage of a pre-wedding event. Although, not gonna lie, I always end up doing both. I just love different places and hate being alone in my air bnb!”
So, go for it! What else are you busy doing right now?!
Harry lives in Buckinghamshire and LOVES photographing weddings. He says himself, “I have a very relaxed and documentary approach, with a bit of artistic flare thrown in from time to time.”