I’ve been to Longwood Gardens so many times for Engagement Sessions, but this time was a little bit different. It was raining during most of the session, and the couple really didn’t want to reschedule, so we went forward with the plan of doing most if not all of the photos indoors in the Conservatory building.
However, before we made it to the Conservatory building at Longwood, we found some shelter in a place that I believe is called The Grotto, which is a small indoor space with a fountain in the middle of the room, which stretches from the ceiling to the floor. We started Lauryn and Andrew’s engagement portraits in there.
The rain didn’t exactly stop, but it let up enough that we could go outside and snap a few more quick photos on the way to the Longwood Conservatory building.
Now safely inside the building, we used the spaces available for a few romantic backdrops and poses that I thought might look cool.
One thing about photographing at Longwood though, is that I can’t bring in off-camera-lighting. This forces me to utilize some different photography techniques that may help me create some unique and interesting images. In this case, I started experimenting with my tilt-shift lens to create a surreal look, and also making a few bokeh-panoramas that I could stitch together in Photoshop later to create an ultra wide-angle yet shallow depth of field look.
At this point, the weather cleared up so we ventured outside. We had already worked for about two hours, but I felt lucky that the weather cleared up and asked them if they wanted to shoot a little bit more. They agreed and the sun even popped out for about six minutes. We had just enough time to get a few more looks before the Longwood Staff politely reminded us that the area was now closed, and that it was time for us to go home.
