Iona’s Beach Light Painted Engagement Photo
Here’s the story behind Chris and Sarah’s pretty Iona’s Beach light painted engagement photo that we created on our 23rd annual “North Shore Weekend” back in early August.
Chris and Sarah were just married last Saturday morning at the Marjorie McNeely Conservatory at the Como Park Zoo in St. Paul, MN. I’m still working on their wedding images, and I’ll be sharing them with you in the days ahead.
Last week, we shared their Lake Superior engagement pictures with you. They included a pretty cool “accidental” engagement photo where a bald eagle flew into and out of the photograph right behind Chris and Sarah! Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time.
A bald eagle does a “fly-by” into Chris and Sarah’s engagement portrait!
Iona’s Beach light painted engagement photograph
After creating some of Chris and Sarah’s North Shore engagement portraits at Split Rock Lighthouse State Park, and at Black Beach in Two Harbors, MN, we headed for our final stop at “Pink Beach”. Better known at Iona’s Beach, it was there I decided to create Chris and Sarah’s Iona’s Beach light painted engagement portrait.
Here’s the behind-the-scenes starting image before starting Chris and Sara’s light painting.
I kind of knew all along that Iona’s Beach would probably be a good spot for their light painting. It has all of the ingredients for a successful light painted photograph. It’s got lot’s of texture with the rocks on the beach and the rocky cliff. It’s also a really pretty location with the pink beach rocks and many trees on the cliff.
I wasn’t very sure that water could be light painted (since it’s always moving), so I left Lake Superior out of the photo. Better safe than sorry.
Black Fly Attack
The only thing I didn’t expect, was that about a bazillion black flies would join us for their Iona’s Beach light painted engagement picture. I was prepared for them, with a can of insect repellant, but even with the bug spray, they were a huge pain. You easily understand why they are part of the “bug” family. They really did “bug” us a lot!
With that said, here’s the starting image with Chris and Sarah before any of the light painting started.
Here’s our starting image prior to starting Chris and Sara’s light painted engagement photo on Iona’s Beach.
Their completed Iona’s Beach light painted engagement photo turned out pretty cool. I love the way that all of the details stand out when we create our light paintings. There’s no other photography technique that can make scenes stand-out like this. Only light painting photography!
The pretty light painted engagement photo of Chris and Sara’s on Iona’s Beach.
That’s why it’s our goal to create a light painted wedding photograph at as many weddings and any portraits sessions as we can. Because Chris and Sarah’s wedding and reception were held during the daylight hours, we created their light painting during their engagement session instead. Kind of cool!
Below is a link to a short YouTube video that kind of shows some of the steps, without flies, that went into creating Chris and Sarah’s pretty one-of-a-kind light painted engagement photograph. We hope you enjoy it.
Thank you for reading our post and have a great day! – M&J