Downtown Portland Engagement Session

When Jess and I started talking about her Downtown Portland engagement session with her fiancé Alex, it went like any other…. where do you want your session, when, what day…. and then when we started talking about posing and comfortability level, we got into one little catch. Due to religious views + practices they couldn’t touch. At all. Not even hands. This of course was TOTALLY fine with me, your love your way right?

But then the self doubt started to set in.

“How am I going to pose them?” “What poses do I utilize that don’t have physical contact?” “What location could help me best?” “Can I still make this a fun experience?”

And THEN I turned to Google and Pinterest. Which were of no help. Turns out when you google something like “no contact photo session” you get a lot of senior portrait or best friend sessions- which usually all feature some sort of hugs or contact when you add in a second person. Face palm.

Fast forward to the day of the session.

We decided on the pretty and historic Telegram Building in Downtown Portland. Jess had been there before and loved the look of the building and the brick walls- and I love me some brick walls too!

Did I mention it was snowing that day? Yeah, like BIG PUFFY FLAKES. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

After much communication back and forth that morning about calling it off or going for it, the skies cleared and we decided to go for it. I grabbed my gear and my no-contact pose shot list that I had compiled on my phone and headed out.

The shoot itself ended up being a great time filled with a ton of laughs, good conversation, beautiful photos, and we basically froze our butts off as we walked around downtown. All the worries and “what if’s” melted away and we were able to capture some really beautiful and fun images of the two of them that they loved. Which to me is a mission accomplished.

So I want to end this by saying that, just because Google or Pinterest may not have your answers doesn’t mean the answer does not exist. You are a capable and creative thinking individual who is MORE THAN EQUIPPED to create your own solutions. People trust in you [clients trust in you] and you owe it to YOURSELF to trust in YOU.

Scroll through to see some of their charming Downtown Portland engagement session!

Ready to start planning your own engagement session? Let’s chat! True love goes beyond the physical, and you deserve to have these memories captured forever.