Soldier

The Client

Mike is from New York and Montana is a true Texas girl and they wanted their session to explore the beauty of their differences.  They’ll be married in 2011 in Austin and I’m very excited to be photographing what is sure to be a very happy and emotional wedding.  You see, Mike is a soldier and left for a tour in Iraq mere weeks after these engagement portraits were taken. They contacted me to create engagement portraits that included an Austin and ‘big city’ feel as well as images in his uniform which represents the military, which is a large part of their life at this moment.

The Photographer

My goal throughout this entire session was to capture both the love that they share for each other and the emotion surrounding his pending deployment.  As anyone who’s been in love can imagine, being separated from your soul mate is a heart wrenching proposition.  I wanted them to have a wonderful time creating their engagement portraits even though the strong emotional component was nearly impossible to ignore.

While Mike is in Iraq and Montana is without him, I wanted them to have beautiful images that bring back the joy of their relationship.  My work is based on capturing who people are and what their life is about and for this beautiful couple, their current journey includes a bit of sadness so I thought it was appropriate to capture that emotion while at the same time remembering that it’s a heartfelt connection and an immense happiness that causes those feelings.  Bringing all of those emotions to life in photographs was my goal.