Autumn Foliage Engagement Photos in Connecticut

Autumn Foliage Engagement Photos in Connecticut | West Hartford CT Photography | Fall Leaves for Engagement Pics

Ashleigh & Joe

It was 6:30AM when I pulled up to the parking lot at the reservoir near Hartford, CT where I was going to meet up with Ashleigh and Joe for their engagement session. I was relieved that these two were all aboard for the idea of a sunrise sesh (turns out they are early risers anyway!) because the light is just SO worth it, and this morning did not disappoint.

The parking lot was totally empty and only a little bit of light had begun to break at that point. The morning chill was pretty real and wasn’t promising to warm up any time soon, but I was walking around by the reservoir watching the fog rising up gave me a real sense that I was happy to be out in nature, despite the early wake up. I sipped on my coffee and waited for the dawn to break and Ashleigh and Joe to arrive.

When they pulled up, I could just tell that we were about to have a great morning. Ashleigh and I both went to The Ethel Walker School and it was fun to have that common ground while also catching up on life post-high school. It has been twelve years since I graduated from Walkers, and it was there where I discovered photography for the first real time in the darkroom. My graduating class was only 36 to paint a picture of how small our school was, so even though Ashleigh was in a younger class, we were such a tight knit community that everyone knew everyone. I’m so lucky to get to revisit many of these friendships now as a lot of my old classmates are getting married and we have the privilege of shooting their weddings!

I also loved getting to know Joe a bit, too. They have such a fun and whimsical energy between them, but you can also tell that their relationship has a super solid foundation. I think my favorite takeaway from our morning together was when we were chatting and I asked them how quarantine has been for both of them. I got a surprisingly positive response from Joe, “It' has been amazing for us!” he started, “It sort of fast-tracked our relationship, actually”. COVID was the reason that Joe was able to move up to Ashleigh and brought them closer both literally and figuratively. A silver lining for an otherwise crazy year, indeed!

Enjoy these pics from Joe & Ashleigh’s sunrise engagement session in CT:

Ethel Walker School Weddings Photography

Michelle & Sarah's Engagement Photos | Ethel Walker School Barn | Connecticut Wedding Photographer | Simsbury, CT | Apollo Photojournalism 

Talk about a blast from the past! I spent my entire high school career at The Ethel Walker School in Simsbury, CT and it was so surreal to be back there to shoot Michelle and Sarah’s engagement photos there. It was a damp and rainy New England day and we were carefully planning when we could still shoot outside. When we realized that the rain wouldn’t let up, we decided to pull out the umbrellas and just go for it. This is what makes this couple so great, they didn’t let the rain get them down at all… if anything, I think it had the opposite effect!

I met Michelle at Walker’s many years ago. Her father was — wait for it — my first photography teacher!! He’s literally the person responsible for putting my first camera in my hands and where this whole thing started. I took a darkroom photography course and never looked back. There was something so magical about the whole process of shooting film and developing it myself. I soaked up the whole thing and spent all of my study halls in the darkroom processing my images. I loved learning about old school methods of dodging, burning, and even hand painting in your images. Mr. Coster, or “Papa” as we affectionately called us, let me run wild with my ideas. He showed me how to do double exposures and a lot of other fun photo manipulations that I find kind of cliche in digital but still fascinate me with film.

Mr. Coster helped me navigate my art career throughout my four years of boarding school. He gave me so much guidance and I quickly became close with his whole family. He has three daughters, one who was in my grade, so I easily fit into their dynamic. Then, his wife started physical therapy at the same doctor’s office as I was going to after my knee surgery so she would give me rides to my sessions. Being at boarding school meant forgoing a traditional “family” environment so when you did have families in walking distance who would take you in occasionally, you took advantage of the opportunity. I remember even walking into their house sometimes when the cafeteria food was inedible and just announcing, “so what’s for dinner”, and he would blankly answer, “Chinese food” without even looking up.

So when Mr. Coster’s youngest daughter, Michelle, got engaged, it made perfect sense that I shoot the wedding. Talk about full circle! Just being back on the old campus was such a trip, and it was also Terrence’s first time seeing EWS so it was crazy to show him the place where I spent my four years of high school. I love this session for so many reasons but I think it perfectly captures their fun and animated personalities at a place that I spent so much time years ago!

Connecticut Wedding Photographer: Apollo Photojournalism

Venue:  The Ethel Walker School | Simsbury, CT