Engagement and Surprise Proposal Photography - Blog Features

Overcast sky, soft light engagement pictures

September 14, 2018March 10, 2011 by Ryan Smith

I had another nice engagement session at the Myrtle Beach State Park for a young couple that are not getting married for a couple of years yet. They are getting married back home so I won’t be doing their wedding. It was a cloudy day with just a little bit of color from the sunset showing through the clouds. Actually, when the sky is cloudy, it can be one of the best times to get shots that look more like in a studio. In a photo studio they use these big boxes over their flashes or lights called a soft box. Basically it’s like putting a sheet in front of a light, it makes it soft and kind of disperses the light around. That is similar to what an overcast sky does, instead of strong direct light you get a more soft and dispersed light without as harsh of shadows.

However, an overcast day can make for a pretty boring flat look to the images with eyes that are kind of dark and lifeless. Everything is kind of a trade off trying to work outdoors, you do the best you can with what you have to work with. One thing that helps, you will notice there is a little sparkle in the clients eyes. This is because I’m using a some fill flash. Flash is very important even when shooting in plenty of light outdoors. In the future I’m actually going to experiment with more off camera wireless flashes to see if I can get a more unique look to the images.

I was really happy with the way the shots turned about, I ended up with about 150 shots that I liked, so that was a really good session. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below. If you like this post, please try out my few Facebook comment system at the bottom of the post after the pictures.

Couple laying by the oak trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

Couple having fun on the oak trees - Myrtle Beach State Park

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Engagement portraits at the Myrtle Beach State Park

November 22, 2014January 6, 2011 by Ryan Smith

It’s getting hard to find some pictures to blog about this time of the year, I did have some brave families do pictures even in the cold over the holidays. I had one family that wanted to do pictures indoors as well as down on the beach in the cold, which turned out nice. Of course I could tell the guys were not too happy about it. It’s really not that bad though, I try to work quickly and just snap a lot of different shots and things really move along fast.

Now about the pictures in this post, this was a really nice couple I did engagement pictures for over the holidays at the Myrtle Beach State Park. Their wedding is going to be in another area, so sadly I won’t be doing a wedding for this couple. It was quite cold, but at least the weather was clear and there was a nice sunset. The guy liked goofing around and I got a lot of funny shots, they seemed to stay smiling most of the time which is what is really important. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.

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Engagement Pictures at the Myrtle Beach Ripley’s Aquarium

November 22, 2014November 30, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I had a fun time doing engagement pictures for a recent couple. At first when they said they wanted to do them at the Ripley’s Aquarium I was a little hesitant. From being there before for a wedding, I knew that the lighting in the aquarium can be really difficult. I was also worried about the crowds of people around, so I wasn’t sure how good the pictures would come out. Everything ended working out better than I expected. First of all the staff was very nice and let us in 15 minutes early so we could have some time in the Aquarium with no one around. In fact they didn’t even charge us to go in. Just to make sure we had plenty of good shots we went to the Myrtle Beach State Park first, then drove over to the Ripley’s Aquarium. Also, I realized the lighting in the Aquarium is much better during the day then it is after dark because they have natural light that comes in through some of the tanks. I’ve also just really gotten pretty good at using flash in difficult situations. I will post a few of the shots from the Aquarium part of the session below, the beach part was nice, but you’ve seen plenty of those already. If anyone has anything different and interesting they want to try for pictures such as this, please let me know.

Silhouette by the aquarium tank - Ripley's Aquarium - Myrtle Beach

Nice view of aquarium- Ripley's Aquarium - Myrtle Beach

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Nice smiles at the Myrtle Beach State Park

November 22, 2014November 15, 2010 by Ryan Smith

My wife and I are both terrible at smiling at the camera, most people really don’t look very natural when they try to smile, so I really feel for clients trying to get their pictures taken. I always try to shoot fast and joke about things to keep it relaxed, the worst type of picture is when someone makes you wait for the shot. Don’t you hate it when people pull out their point and shoot camera, count to three, then still wait a few second for the shot. That is a good recipe for getting the worst possible shot. Still, even with a fast DSLR, most of the time my favorite shots are when the couples are looking at each other or just catching natural smiles when they happen. This couple though just seemed to have naturally great smiles, that is why I picked to post below a number of pictures where they are looking at the camera. They were up for anything and seemed to really enjoy the pictures, I’m looking forward to doing their wedding next year. I hope you enjoy some of the shots below.

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Engagement Pictures from the Myrtle Beach State Park

November 22, 2014October 27, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I haven’t posted anything on the blog in a while, so I just decided to quickly put up a few of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks. It seems like I’ve had a number of engagement sessions recently, more than usual. It’s especially nice if I’m also doing the couple’s wedding, it gives them a bit of practice. It’s always easier when things are rushed and stressful at a wedding if the couple basically knows what getting their pictures taken is going to be like. From what I’ve noticed it seems like everyone always has a lot better time than they think they will going into the session. I hope you enjoy some of the pictures below.

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Beautiful Sunset – Myrtle Beach Park

December 6, 2017August 18, 2010 by Ryan Smith

I’ve been extremely busy the past few weeks, I haven’t had time to put up a blog post with recent pictures. Remember if you click “most recent images” on my home page you will find some of my recent uploads that don’t always make it to the blog. Today I was working on some family/engagement pictures and I really loved the sunset and wanted to highlight some of them. This may look like a wedding, but it was really just a family photoshoot of a recently married couple and their family. We were able to do some with the bride in her dress, and because the wedding was over she didn’t mind getting it dirty. One thing that made these pictures really nice is the fact that it was almost sunset, at a normal wedding I might be trying to do pictures 2 hours or more before sunset because of the ceremony time, which isn’t really ideal. I hope you enjoy these.

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Engagement pictures of the Myrtle Beach state park.

November 22, 2014July 13, 2010 by Ryan Smith

It’s been a while since I’ve done just engagement pictures without having a wedding involved. I had two couples this past week, both of them were great to work with. I’ll post a few pictures from their sessions below, I think that I’m actually getting very good at getting couples to relax and have fun with the pictures. I hope you enjoy them.

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