FORT NIAGARA MATERNITY

We are back with Hayley for her maternity session at Fort Niagara State Park. The weather was perfect. Finally, no humidity!

Hayley recently got married and moved to Canada. When we pulled into Fort Niagara, Toronto was clear as day in the distance. This does not happen too often either. It is usually very hazy. Since, Toronto is home to Hayley, Wes, doggy Byna, and soon to be baby, we had to get the skyline!

Hayley is a stunning mama to be! She looked gorgeous! She was glowing! And what a gorgeous smile! I love it!

-Danielle

Neal here, I was Danielle's assistant on this shoot. Danielle told me the shot she wanted to get but it required some heavy duty lighting. Since Toronto is so far away, if she shot anywhere between f/2.8-f/8 the skyline would be a big blur. To get a larger depth of field Danielle had to bump her F stop all the way up to f/20! It's a good thing she did it because the sun was quite bright and that exposed for the highlights perfectly and now Toronto is clear as day! Now I had to bring in some lighting to light hayley because shooting at f/20 she was a dark silhouette. We had a few speedlights with us. We needed a lot of power so we used two speedlights at max power and that gave us the perfect amount of light for Hayley.

I even included a lighting diagram... Like this feature? Let us know in the comments below and we'll include more in future blog posts.

-Neal

Buffalo Maternity Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Maternity Photo Session: Fort Niagara State Park

SUNSET MATERNITY AT FORT NIAGARA STATE PARK

We had an amazing maternity session with Hayley (we missed your hubby Wes) at Fort Niagara State Park. Wes had to work, so Hayley was flying solo. She is due in October, so rescheduling wasn't really an option since she could go anytime soon.

We had so much fun with Hayley. She looked gorgeous! We had a beautiful sunset. We decided to take a walk down the beach. We do not get to shoot at this pier often due to the tide being high. The beach is usually covered with water in that area. Well, today was perfect! Neal took a walk to make sure it was safe for Hayley to get there. We got the "OK" and headed over.

For this shoot, Neal was assisting me. He was on lighting duty. I must say he did a fantastic job! I had Neal escort Hayley to the end of the pier. I shot from the beach with the sun setting behind Hayley. The colors were so pretty but fading fast. We had her change up her pose a few times for some contrast, and this was my favorite. 

What a perfect image to end the shoot! Wes is going to love these!

-Danielle

Buffalo Maternity Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Maternity Photo Location: Fort Niagara State Park

BEAUTY AT THE OLD FORT

Yes we are bringing you back to Old Fort Niagara. Like I mentioned before, it is a popular location for us to shoot, but again, we found a new spot!

Erin and Dan got married in September of 2011. After working with the wedding party, we sent them back to the limo to party. It was time to get some nice and intimate photos with the lovely couple. We walked all over the Fort and came across this area. Does anyone else get a Diagon Alley from Harry Potter feel from this image? It’s probably just me!

Neal was looking around and saw that he could get a higher vantage point. You could tell he was really excited because he started running! I was below completely facing the couple. I did not see until after what Neal was going for. I loved it! I love how you can see more of the roof and some light from the sky!

-Danielle

Buffalo Wedding Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Wedding Ceremony: Prince of Peace Church

Buffalo Wedding Photo Location: Old Fort Niagara

Buffalo Wedding Reception: Rapids Theatre

I SEE YOU!

We showed you a dramatic photo of Stephanie and Michael at Old Fort Niagara earlier in the week. Well, we definitely needed to show you a fun one as well!

There is nothing like looking at your just married spouse through a view finder! Too bad none of us had quarters so they could actually see one another. All they could see was black. But that didn’t stop them from having fun with it. 

Not all of our photos are crazy, artistic or dramatic. We do like to have fun with our couples. This is a prime example of all of us just having a great time.

-Danielle

Buffalo Wedding Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Wedding Ceremony: Prince of Peace Church

Buffalo Wedding Photo Location: Old Fort Niagara

Buffalo Wedding Reception: Niagara Falls Country Club

ALONE IN THE OLD FORT

Stephanie and Michael had a beautiful wedding in August of 2011. We went to Old Fort Niagara for their photos.

We shoot there often, so we always try to find a new place to use or shoot from a different angle. This wall did have two wooden benches in front. We decided to pull one aside. Now, Neal had a blank canvas with one lonely bench. 

We had Stephanie and Michael have a seat. Stephanie laid right into Michael’s arms. It looked so good. We wanted to make them feel as though they were the only two people in the Fort. I think it worked!

-Danielle

Buffalo Wedding Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Wedding Ceremony: Prince of Peace Church

Buffalo Wedding Photo Location: Old Fort Niagara

Buffalo Wedding Reception:: Niagara Falls Country Club

DECEMBER LEAVES!

Leaves in December!

Kristin and John had their engagement shoot at Fort Niagara State Park and the Village of Lewiston area. John's kids came along for some family portraits to start off the session! Four boys! Holy cow! But they were awesome and so much fun. For this shot, we had them throw leaves up! We told them to throw them behind Kristin and John. We knew that wasn't going to happen. They were thrown right at Kristin and John and it was perfect. They did such a great job. And they had so much fun with it. They helped to create a beautiful image with so many laughs!

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photographer: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Session: Fort Niagara State Park, Village of Lewiston

ASHLEY & DAN AT FORT NIAGARA STATE PARK

Save the Date!! Ashley and Dan are getting married tomorrow!

We did their engagement shoot last year at Fort Niagara State Park. There are some wonderful buildings on property! We shot this at an old victorian style brick home. There was a broken down porch with amazing vines growing through it. There were not stairs for Ashley and Dan to climb. But they were both troopers and climbed right up! (and even Ashley in a dress)!

They brought a sign with them with their date on it that someone had made for them. We thought it was a great place to incorporate it! Right when we had them where we needed, the wind started blowing and the sign would not stay flat. We took about 50 shots just to get it. We had Ashley and Dan look at each other. Probably for a really long time haha. But we did get some great laughs as well! And we got the image for them to use for their Save the Date cards!

Neal and I can't wait to shoot their wedding tomorrow!

-Danielle

Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Photo Sessin: Fort Niagara State Park, Village of Lewiston

BROTHERS CHASING THE BIRDS AT FORT NIAGARA!

This is another image from our family portrait session at Fort Niagara State Park from last week. Here are brothers Luka and Caleb running full force at the birds!

At Fort Niagara there are always a ton of birds. Seagulls and geese convene down by the water all of the time. We did some family photos on the beach on Lake Ontario and Luka saw the birds. He asked if he could run at them. What a great idea! The kids needed a little break too! This was perfect timing. Mom and Dad said go run to the birds. And they both did, with Neal and I running behind them documenting the action. They were so quick, we couldn't keep up! Once Luka and Caleb got close, the birds took flight! What a fun image!

-Danielle

Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Photography Session: Fort Niagara State Park, Village of Youngstown, NY

PEEK-A-BOO

Laura and Joe are expecting their second child very soon. On Thursday, we did a maternity and family photo shoot for them. It was done at Fort Niagara State Park.

Little Victoria was full of energy and wanted to run around. Trying to get a simple family portrait was a challenge, but so much fun. She was such a cute little diva. Nani even came along to help. She did a great job too! We were working with Laura and Joe, while Victoria was playing in the background. She kept yelling for mommy and looking our way. We wanted to bring her into the family portrait, without any posing for her. We had Laura and Joe try to call her over and see what would happen. As she started to run our way, Laura and Joe got into position of where they needed to be. We were hoping to have Victoria pose in between them. With cameras in hand, she came running up so fast and hid behind mommy, Neal yelled out "Peek-a-boo!", Victoria peeked out and gave us a look exactly what we were hoping for. Bonus! She knocked it out of the park the first time! And as fast as she came running up, she vanished back to Nani just as quickly! But we absolutely love her reaction. We have a feeling that she's going to be a great sister to her future baby brother!

This is just the tip of the iceburg from this shoot. We did it all from traditional family portraits, artistic belly photos in the woods, romantic mommy & daddy photos on the beach and playful photos of Victoria chasing hundreds (literally) of birds photos!

-Danielle

Buffalo Maternity Photography: Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Maternity Location: Fort Niagara State Park

NINA, VINNY, AND MICKEY AT FORT NIAGARA!

Nina and Vinny are getting married Saturday! Here is one of their engagement images done at Fort Niagara State Park in Youngstown NY.

Nina is a huge Disney fan! They actually got engaged in Disney World! We began their shoot inside the Old Fort (take a look Saturday to see an image from that part of the shoot). She brought a Mickey balloon and it really didn't work well inside the Fort with their outfits. We decided to keep it to use down by the water. We found a lonely picnic table facing Lake Ontario. This shot wasn't as easy as you would think. It was a little breezy and it kept moving around the Mickey balloon. Nina and Vinny couldn't really see what was going on because we needed them to look straight ahead. But, we really wanted to get a cute shot for Nina. It took about 10 minutes for Mickey to be visible haha! We knew she would love it! 

-Danielle

Buffalo Engagement Photography by Neal Urban Studio

Buffalo Engagement Photo Session - Fort Niagara State Park