Engagement in Forest Lawn

Happy wedding week to Dave and Kristine! They tie the knot this Sunday!

This image was taken during their engagement shoot at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo. Yes, the cemetery. It is beautiful there. There are so many amazing places to take photos that will not have grave stones in them. As we were driving over this bridge we saw this colorful tree. We had to stop. We had Dave and Kristine lean on the side of the stone bridge and have a nice smile for the camera. We shot at an angle to get the parts of the tree that had the prettiest colors. You would think this image was taken in fall. But, it was only a few months ago!

If you have some spare time, check out Forest Lawn Cemetery website. Or take a drive through. They do tours on Sundays. You will not believe how pretty it is. We were so happy to get some beautiful images there for Dave and Kristine!

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Location: Forest Lawn Cemetery and Delaware Park

Mini-Shoot before the rehearsal dinner

Happy Anniversary to Kelly and Tom. They are celebrating one year!

This was done on the night of their rehearsal. They had their rehearsal dinner at a small restaurant/bar called Wiechec's. It was awesome! There was singing and Polka dancing. It was definately a rehearsal party coverage for the books! Tom's father owns a hardware shop (Hector's Hardware) down the road at they wanted some photos done there.

We had the run of the shop and could go anywhere. You know we love reflections! This was done right near the cashiers register. We had Kelly and Tom stand in the small opening (Tom is pretty tall and barely fit). When their reflections were just right, Neal took the picture. We love that when you look closely at the image, you can see all of the tools and gadets sold in the store. Then, you have Kelly and Tom having a kiss right in the middle of it all!

Happy Anniversary Kelly and Tom!

-Danielle

Buffalo Rehearsal Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Rehearsal Photo Location: Hector's Hardware

Buffalo Rehearsal Dinner: Wiechec's Lounge

ENGAGEMENT SHOOT AT COLE'S!

Kaeleigh and Greg are getting married next year. They had their first date at Cole's Restaurant and Bar in Buffalo. That is where we started their shoot.

We lucked out that it was a beautiful day and most people were eating out on the patio. We had the inside almost to ourselves. We had Kaeleigh and Tom order a drink and hang out at the bar. For this shot, we wanted to get almost the entire room in the shot. The checkered floor was really cool and there was some great woodwork. There were flags, signs, lights, and pictures everywhere.

We had Kaeleigh and Greg at the end of the bar in the middle of everything. There is a second floor in Cole's and that is where Neal was taking the shot from. I was below lighting the couple. Because we were in a public bar, we were being as discreet as possible. That meant communicating direction with Neal was much more quiet than usual. It was pretty fun and we got some great laughs from Kaeleigh and Greg when Neal was directing. 

The end shot was perfect! We got a nice kiss from Kaeleigh and Greg. And we got to document them in Cole's, a place that will always hold great memories for them! We can't wait for the wedding next year!

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagmenet Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Location: Cole's, Cobblestone District, First Niagara Center

Camera B

Here is another shot from our amazing engagement shoot with Erica and Steve at the Erie Basin Marina. This was my angle while Neal and Dave LaNasa were using the drone.

I was shooting directly from the boat at the couple. It was so much fun. It was a little difficult for Steve to get situated on the raft. He is a pretty tall guy. There are a few shots with him falling in the water! Great laughs from Erica! As Neal was directing, Erica and Steve were slowly floating away. A huge canoe just happened to be going by right behind them. It was great for me! I got to document some great images!

As you can see from yesterday's image, this is completely different from what Neal was going for. It was a great team effort by everyone involved!

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Location: Erie Basin Marina

Buffalo Engagement Video (drone operator): LaNasa Studio

Into the blue....

We had the pleasure of shooting Erica and Steve's engagement session on Sunday! Once we found out that we were doing the shoot on their boat, Neal had an amazing idea. It involved using the drone!

We met Erica and Steve at their dock at the Erie Basin Marina. Neal and Dave LaNasa (LaNasa Studio-beautiful videography!) invested in the drone together. Dave flies the drone and Neal takes the pictures via iPhone app. They make a great team. It's very entertaining to watch the two of them work together. Something tells me that the drone isn't going to last long with the crazy ideas they come up with but the end product is always worth the risk!

For this idea, we needed Erica and Steve in the water in the middle of nowhere (or as close as we could get them away from everyone). We purchased innertubes for them to float in. (they took us about 2 hours to blow up the day before haha).

Once in the water, Neal and Dave were standing on the front of the boat ready to operate! Neal was directing Erica and Steve of what they needed to do. It was pretty funny because the current kept pushing them opposite of where he needed them. As Dave was flying the drone, Neal took pictures and saw everything through the iPhone screen. He was going for the perfect overhead shot with the reflection of the sky in the water. Curious kyakers and fellow boaters were floating by watching the excitiment so we kept having to wait for them to clear the shot. (check out tomorrow's blog to see my angle of Erica and Steve and how different it looks). Then the perfect moment happened and Neal got his shot! 

This shoot was so much fun! Thank you to Dave LaNasa for flying the drone and to Steve's father for driving the boat while our captain, Steve played in the water with his beautiful fiance, Erica.

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Location: Erie Basin Marina

Buffalo Engagement Video (drone operator): LaNasa Studio

GREEN LAKE PARK ENGAGEMENT SHOOT

Melissa and Justin are getting married this October. Justin is the owner of Yolo Restaurant (amazing food). Melissa is a pastry chef at the Dessert Deli. A great combination if I do say so myself!

 

We did part of their engagement shoot last year at Green Lake Park. This image was the last image of the shoot. And also one of my favorites! Melissa and Justin had on some casual clothing for this part of the shoot. We saw the giant tree stump and figured it was the perfect time to sit and hang out! We had Melissa sit in Justin's lap and enjoy the moment. You can see they were having a great time because they were both laughing and had great smiles. I needed to add some extra light to their faces because it was getting dark.

What makes this shot so much more interesting are the people in the background. We normally do not have random people in the back, but there were boy scouts at Green Lake for an overnight camping trip. They were on the dock fishing. We thought it looked really cute to keep them in the background. It ended up working out great!

We can't wait for Melissa and Justin's wedding this year!

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagment Photo Location: Green Lake Park, Clarence Center 

NYC, CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN, ENGAGEMENT SHOOT!!!!!

Oh I was in heaven for this engagement shoot! We traveled to New York City to do Leyla and Mike's engagement shoot. There were not set plans for shooting the first night. Mostly around Time Square and toward Central Park.

On the way, the store fronts all looked amazing! Then we come across a Christian Louboutin shoe Ferris wheel! How amazing is that window display? And the shoes were really moving around the wheel! Leyla and Mike both loved the idea! We wanted a simple pose because of the background. I was so mesmerized that I couldn't concentrate on lighting. It was pretty funny! Either way, the image is gorgeous!

I hope you enjoy this image as much as I do!

-Danielle

NYC Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

NYC Engagement Photo Location: New York City

KICK OFF TO 4TH OF JULY WEEKEND!

Today we take you back to Leah and Jimmy's engagement shoot! We started off their engagement shoot at Mangia Restaurant in Orchard Park. That is one of their favorite places! We then ventured around the village before ending the shoot at Green Lake Park!

While walking around we noticed a brick building with beautiful red hanging flowers and American flags! We loved it! There was a little breeze, so the flags had some great movement. We had Leah and Jimmy walk away from us and got some action shots. Then Neal had them stop almost at the end of the last flag and go in for a kiss. Of course we really loved the shot right after their kiss when they slowly started to pull away from each other.

I love how this is a nice intimate shot with some patriotic flare! You can check out more of Leah and Jimmy's engagement images featured in one of our books, "The Art of Engagement Portraits: Lighting, Posing, and Postproduction for Breathtaking Photography. Published by Amherst Media Publishing and found on Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.

Leah's been into photography for 10-15 years and soon after we photographed her wedding she quickly became a part of our Neal Urban Studio family! She is now one of our main photographers so you will probably hear her name and see her work in future blog posts.

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Location: Mangia Restaurant, Village of Orchard Park, Green Lake Park 

FLAT IRON ENGAGEMENT

After talking about yesterdays photo about how clients stories take us to different places... Let's go back a few years! This is from Leyla and Mike's engagement shoot in New York City! NYC was personal to them but they didn't like the "touristy" side of NYC aka Times Square. They wanted the side streets, the shops and of course the hidden secrets of Central Park where they got engaged.

Today's image was done in front of the Flat Iron Building! We did a lot of prep work to get this shot. We arrived in NYC the day before Leyla and Mike got there to scope out locations. Flat Iron district was a must and Neal wanted them in the center of the street in front of the building. I was the test subject! We had to time out the traffic lights and the flow of people crossing the street to know exactly when to take the shot of Leyla and Mike. It took about 2 hours to time everything out. We even had the NYC cops walk by a few times asking what we were doing.

When Leyla and Mike arrived, we started the shoot at night walking around 5th Avenue taking shots of them in front of the fancy store fronts, City Music Hall, Rockefeller Center and headed toward Central Park. Amazing at night!! The next day, we had a private photo shoot at Tiffany's on Fifth Ave! I was in heaven! Leyla was too as she picked out a couple beautiful pieces of jewelry for her wedding. We were literally taking photos behind the scenes in the upstairs offices and private showrooms and on the main showroom floor as they shopped. They even got served champagne while they shopped. Amazing!!!! We then traveled back to Central Park  where they got engaged and then to the Flat Iron.

We told Leyla and Mike exactly what we wanted at the Flat Iron. We mentioned we had it all timed out for them as well. We actually needed to catch a flight right after this location, so we needed it to be perfect in a short amount of time. Mike was so funny. He kept yelling out the timing of everything. We were laughing so hard, we couldn't concentrate. It took about 20 minutes to get the final product. It was everything we could hope for and more.

Now it was time to catch our flight. We stashed our bags in Leyla and Mike's room at the Waldorf Astoria. Little did we know, there was a presidential campaign going on at their hotel and Barrack Obama and Mit Romney were present. Secret Service agents were everywhere and had the place on lockdown. We were freaking out that we would miss our flight. And we needed to get back home for a wedding. Then out of nowhere, a Secret Service Agent saw us struggling with all our gear and escorted us out of the hotel and got us a cab! We made it just in time for flight. We felt so important that a guy who protects the President gave us an escort!

This was a great story with amazing images for Leyla and Mike. They were so down to earth and treated us to late night dinners, breakfasts' at the Waldorf and lunches in the city. They seriously treated us as friends and we couldn't be more grateful for their kindness. We were so excited for them that they made the cover of our recent book "The Art of Engagements".

Leyla & Mike recently welcomed their first child a couple weeks ago. We could not be happier for them. They're going to be the best parents ever. We have one more shoot with them and can't wait to document more memories for them.

-Danielle

NYC Wedding Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

NYC Engagement Photo Location: NYC, Flat Iron building

ENGAGEMENT SHOOT AT WOODLAWN BEACH

I had the pleasure of shooting Amanda and Frank's engagment pictures with our assistant photographer Leah last week! We started out at the Buffalo Botannical Gardens and headed to Woodlawn Beach State Park for sunset.

We had a beautiful sunset! The beach wasn't busy either, so we could go almost anywhere. I had Amanda and Frank casually walk down the beach for some nice action shots. When they got to a certain point, I asked Frank to pull Amanda in for a kiss and slighty dip her back. This was the image right before the actual kiss. I love it! I think it has a little more dramatic feel. Paired with the colorful sky, it turned out to be an amazing image!

Frank and Amanda get married in June of 2016. I can't wait to capture more beautiful images for them!

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Locations: Buffalo Botannical Gardens, Woodlawn Beach State Park