I met Shirley and Chris in mid September at a relatively new place on the Upper East Side called the Shake Shack. One of their favorite places in the neighborhood, I later found out. I was in the city for another event so I wasn’t able to meet with them until after 9pm. I parked the car near the restaurant and as I rolled up on the location, I see people lined up to just outside the door. I raised my eyebrow and thought, well – this is NYC but it’s almost 9:30 on a Wednesday night!? I called Shirley to let her know I arrived and ordered some food from this popular place.
A few minutes later, they arrived and we started chatting. We were referred from a mutual friend so the first thing we talked about was how we all love Suman + Rishi (our mutual friends). They shared with me that they met at NYU through mutual friends and later started dating and it was love at first sight (actually, I just made that up). They're both involved in finance for work and have been in NYC for many years. Much of their time was spent in and around NYU but they now call the Upper East Side home.
We talked about the feel they wanted from the images and the types of places they wanted to shoot in. Once we had some logistics sorted out and some possible dates, we parted ways and waited for the engagement shoot day to come. A couple weeks prior I checked the forecast and it didn’t look good. Fortunately, the forecast was wrong and we had a really nice day for the locations they picked to focus on: Central Park, Washington Square Park/NYU area, then over to the Brooklyn Bridge for some sunset time shots.
I was fortunate enough to have an assistant work with me (Avi) that I’ve worked with in the past. This proves to be invaluable for so many reasons. From carrying the load of equipment I bring to helping with reflectors, lights, etc. I couldn’t do it without him. Thanks Avi!
Something I took note of pretty quickly was once a new direction was decided, how quickly Shirley & Chris moved. I mean literally moved. “Okay, we're done with this location. Let's look for the next place to shoot." Then, BAM. They collect themselves and they're off. What I learned from watching them is that they are driven, focused, and most of all in sync with each other. They seemed to have a great connection and I hope this comes through in the images we captured.
I really enjoyed the day and look forward to the next time we get to work together. Some favorites below - along with a video slideshow...
But wait, there's more! To see more of what we captured during our shoot, check out the slideshow below...
Shirley & Chris Engagement Slideshow from Darrin Estep on Vimeo.