Golden Hour in Winthrop: Allison & Brian

Our second engagement session with Allison and Brian took us somewhere very different from the first—and that contrast is part of what makes photographing this season so much fun.

The first was inside Fenway Park. This time, we headed to Winthrop, Massachusetts, a place that means something to them, for an evening on the water.

The evening was everything we want from a coastal engagement session: golden hour light across the water, sailboats in the distance, bare feet, a little wind, and plenty of time to have fun together.

There is something about photographing along the New England coast that never needs much embellishment. The water does the work. So does the late summer light.

For us, an engagement session is also an opportunity to begin building a larger visual collection around a couple—not simply photographs for the months between getting engaged and getting married, but the beginning of the larger wedding story.

Allison and Brian will be back in front of our cameras in a couple of months for their wedding, where we'll be creating both digital and film photography alongside their wedding films. But their wedding coverage can extend well beyond the ceremony itself.

A bridal portrait session. A welcome dinner. A bachelorette or bachelor weekend. Rehearsal events. Portraits around the wedding destination. Another session after the wedding, when the flowers are gone and the dress is safely back in the closet.

All of those occasions can become part of the same collection, each with its own atmosphere and place within the larger picture.

That approach feels particularly natural for weddings along the New England coast. Cape Cod, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Newport, coastal Maine, Boston, and even the Hamptons each bring their own atmosphere, architecture, water, and light. When a wedding weekend unfolds across several days, there is so much more worth photographing than the ceremony alone.

For Allison and Brian, the collection already includes Fenway and Winthrop. One session has the architecture and electricity of Boston's most recognizable ballpark; the other has the quiet water and late light of the coast.

Next comes the wedding.

For now, we'll take the golden hour.