Pittsburgh Engagement Photography: Shoot at Shawnee with Katie and Brendan

Jenny and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday with most of her family at the “Lakeside Lodge” at Shawnee State Park out near Bedford, PA. While there, we had the chance to take her sister Katie and newly-minted fiance’ out around the area to shoot some engagement portraits. Fortunately for us, we were blessed with beautiful weather, beautiful scenery, and a pretty darn good-looking couple, too.

The shot at the head of this post was taken near the lodge down by the lake. We were actually getting ready to jump into cars to head to another location that was out of walking distance, and Jenny spotted this great white birch down by the lake. The sun was at the perfect angle for some pretty-lighting-with-a-bit-of-lens-flare, and the tree shape led to some fun shots.

I was going all wide-out on some of these to catch some of the great architecture and landscapes around the cute couple. The site of Shawnee Lake was part of a farm that was originally owned by one of the Pitt Chancellors from the time of the Cathedral of Learning construction. There are still a bunch of farm buildings on the island where the lodge is located. One of them is the great barn in this shot. The lodge itself, in fact, was the farm foreman’s residence.

It was pretty cold on the day that we did their engagement portraits, so between shots they’d usually don coats and gloves and warm-up a little before the next shot. We were also blessed with two people who pretty much posed themselves and did so quite well, though sometimes my favorite shots were what happened between poses, as these next two illustrate:

Shots like those are the reason why, even when everyone else is relaxing and you’re thinking about the next shot, track the exposure and watch what is happening. These moments further prove that the lovely looks they gave each other during the posed shots were not poses at all!

After shooting around the lodge and lake area, we took off for a local covered bridge that is still open, but no longer on a through road. That gave us the ability to spend as much time as we wanted grabbing shots there. We did the easy stuff first, where we were both on the bridge at the same time, like this:

Then we moved onto the shots where I got down in the mud by the Juniata River branch that the bridge crosses, put up a giant light stand, employed Jenny as a light stand balance device, slapped-on the telephoto, and took some fun shots from another angle.

Shortly after this photo was taken, I nearly started singing soprano for an extended period of time. While climbing back up the hill with camera gear and a light stand that I was just about to hand-off to Jenny who had already ascended the hill, my shoe caught on a branch and took me down on top of some pointy tree parts. My jeans did not fare well, but the shots were worth it! Everything still present and accounted for after that incident, we took a few last shots, packed our gear, and headed back to the lodge to warm up while I went into editing mode.

Katie and Brendan, thank you for letting us take your engagement photos! It was so much fun to see you guys all happy and lovely, and the light and weather pulled-through precisely when we needed them. We are excited for your wedding now, as I’m sure you two are, too!