Silverwood Park Engagement Portraits
Last Thursday evening I had the pleasure of creating Amy and Brandon’s Silverwood Park engagement portraits. Joannie & I will be their wedding photographers in Oakdale, MN during this October’s fall color season. I’m looking forward to it as fall is my favorite time of year for weddings (it’s just way too short)!
Amy and Brandon in the beautiful dense oak forest at Silverwood Park.
As you know, Thursday was an interesting day weather-wise. It was very hot and humid, with no clouds, and it was very windy most of the day. But by the time 6:30 rolled around, the sky was getting pretty cloudy. While Brandon and I were in the parking lot at Silverwood Park, it still was pretty windy. When Amy arrived and we started creating the first of their first Silverwood Park engagement pictures, the wind was dying down. It turns out that it was a sign that the weather was going to change and change in a hurry.
Silverwood Park Engagement Photos
Since we would be working in heavily shaded areas, I had Lightning McQueen with me to assist me in the lighting department. Amy, Brandon and I strolled through the beautiful oak forest stopping several times to take some really pretty images of the two of them.
Behind the scenes photo of Brandon and Amy being nicely lit by our custom lighting cart that we call “Lightning McQueen”!
Silverwood Park in St. Anthony, MN is a beautiful city park on Silver Lake with lots of scenic green space. It also has an art gallery, an outdoor amphitheater and lots of hiking trails. It’s also a fairly large park too. We only saw a small portion of it, but that was due to the heavy weather that was coming our way.
The finished engagement portrait with lighting coming from Mother Nature and our very own “Lightning McQueen”.
The Storm Approaches
Brandon and Amy in a pretty wooden structure at Silverwood Park.
As we were coming out the dense woods on the northwest side of the park we could see that the southern sky was getting black. A quick look at my weather app told me that we had about 30 minutes or so before severe weather would be on us! Since we hadn’t gone down by the lake yet, Amy quickly ran to her car to change outfits and I headed towards the lake to scout out a spot for the next images.
Amy & Brandon in the tall grasses at Silverwood Park.
As I arrived at the shores of Silver Lake, the wind started to get very strong with flashes of lightning in the not-too-far-away sky. All of the people fishing by the lake were packing up and heading for safety. Suddenly, this was not looking like a very good idea! Amy and Bradon arrived shortly afterward and we all headed to the nearby Visitors Center to take cover.
As we stood just outside of the building, I thought why not try and create a few more images? We were on the side of the building that protected us from the strong winds, and it hadn’t started to rain yet. So we snuck in a few more photos right there!
While we didn’t get many images in the new outfit, the few images we did get are pretty cute!
The last engagement photo created just minutes before the storm hit.
Run For Cover!
Right after that, all three of us decided to take a shot at getting to our cars before the rain hit. We said some hasty good-byes as we were hurrying to our cars. I took Lightning McQueen apart and placed him in my car, gear and all still attached, just seconds before it started raining! I finished taking McQueen apart back home in the safety of our garage while it was pouring (and lightning) outside.
All-in-all, it turned out to be a great engagement photo adventure! The good news is that we created quite a few pretty Silverwood Park Engagement Portraits for Amy and Brandon. And we really did need the rain too! –M&J