Central Park Engagement Session
Central Park Engagement Photography | Bethesda Fountain and Terrace Wedding Photographs | NYC Engagement Photographers | Apollo Fields Husband and Wife Photo Team
Natalie & Eugene’s Engagement
Anytime I get to walk through Central Park it reminds me of my old running route. I’d start at West 112th Street and run down Broadway to 79th Street, cut across the avenues past the Museum of Natural History, and stop at a pull up bar near the Great Lawn to do some calisthenic exercises. I’d continue my run south towards Sheep Meadow to play Ultimate Frisbee with one of the best communities I’ve ever known. I’d eventually make my way back to the west side strolling by Bethesda Fountain, past the Bow Bridge, and along my favorite path on the south side of The Central Park Lake, the body of water where tourists take out the cute paddle boats. I can’t help but think about this time of my life without a great longing, reminiscing about the freedom of my twenties. It seems that no matter how old I am I always ‘[\want to be somewhere else or be older or younger. It makes me beg the question: is there any way to get over this “grass is always greener” mindset over the course of our lives?
Heather and I met Eugene over the summer at one of our friend’s going away parties, but this was the first time we met Natalie. We connected with them through our mutual friend, John, who went to Marymount Manhattan College with Eugene. We didn’t expect John to come along for the engagement session in Central Park but there he was, giving Eugene style tips and busting his chops like a good friend and quintessential best man. We started the shoot at Bethesda Fountain, dabbled in the Mall between street performers and skateboarders, then finished up by The Lake and Bow Bridge because Eugene and Natalie are set to get married at the Loeb Boathouse in just a few short months.
Eugene and Natalie have one of those quiet connections, and according to them it’s been there since their very first date. One of the questions we ask on the questionnaire we send over to our couples is: “When did you realize that you loved your significant other?” Well, for Eugene and Natalie, all it took was one date, because afterwards they jokingly referred to each other as ‘husband’ and ‘wife.’ The way they interact with one another is intimate but casual, conversational and playful. There is an understanding beneath their every exchange that made them very easy to photograph through our walk in Central Park. We all decided to grab a drink on the Upper West Side afterwards.
The most unfortunate thing about love is that it all comes down to timing. The kind of understanding that Eugene and Natalie and Heather and I have all stems from meeting someone at a particular time in our lives when each of us 1) had a strong idea of who we were as individuals, and 2) had a strong idea of what we wanted our significant other to be like. The alignment of these two factors is critical to a healthy relationship with any hope of longevity. A lot of us spend most of our lives trying to figure our “who we are” and a lot of us are too wracked with doubt and insecurity to effectively learn what a good partner for our particular needs looks like. Every time I try to explain how Heather and I have such a working, loving relationship, there is a feeling of an insurmountably large chasm between being alone and being where we are. The best thing I can suggest is to start with a better understanding of yourself.
Despite always feeling like “the grass is always greener” most of my life, I can confidently say I am thoroughly enjoying my thirties. Heather and I have hit a stride in our business, and we have one happy, healthy boy. I still get frustrated and am overtired most of the time, but once I hear Capa giggle or see him peacefully sleeping any sort of bullshit stress just washes away. Capa helps ground me in a way that makes life feel finite for the first time. For as long as I can remember I’ve always felt that I’m going to live forever—and each day and year that passes its hard to wrap my mind around all that has changed—that is until you see a newborn baby become a ten-month-old. We all grow older everyday and it is up to us to appreciate the green grass beneath our feet.
Enjoy these images from Eugene and Natalie’s Central Park engagement:
Wedding Photographers in NYC
3.2.18 - 5004 Cody Street ~ 1:05 AM MT
Heather told me tonight that she really appreciated my partnership today. She told me that she could count on me to tidy up the house, to research SEO stuff for Apollo Fields, and that trusting someone else to handle things isn’t easy for her. Since the beginning of our relationship we’ve always trusted each other because we haven’t given each other a reason not to. It’s wonderful that that reality is also seeping into the business partnership that we’re creating.
I know that few people are lucky enough to find a significant other whom they can communicate with, work with, and even enjoy being with for a long period of time. Often times it’s hard enough to even get along with yourself for awhile. Yet here we are as a couple in pursuit of a creative endeavor that incorporates and celebrates the things that we are both best at individually. There are even fewer people who can be part of something like that.
As I explained it to several people at Oasis tonight, Heather and I’s partnership and eventual marriage was borne out of the recognition of a pattern of mutually beneficial decisions and actions. To us, concepts like eternal love are irrational fantasies seated in the rationality of the human mind; pursuing them is akin to letting your conscience be commanded by a belief in heaven and hell—it allows imaginary ideas to take precedence over the human faculty of rationality.
In the past three years Heather and I have taken countless trips, published a cookbook, moved across the country, adopted a Doberman from a sandwich shop, had our Jack Russell become paraplegic, acquired a horse, and fought and laughed in between. Many things have stood in our way but none of them have stopped us. Our relationship withstands the things that come our way because we know we control our actions and that we will be there for our partner when they get in their own way.
To say that, “we don’t fight” is a misnomer and an oversimplification—we hold different opinions all the time, but it’s a matter of choosing when and where to dig our feet into the mud. It takes emotional will power to cede your pride in the name of the greater good of the relationship, but learning to govern your feelings in order to foster an atmosphere of trust, support, and honesty will always be worth it. There are times when I or Heather knows that the arena we have chosen to fight in is a waste of time or that we were not meant to share this same battlefield and we’ve learned that that’s OK. Our altercations are a matter of recognizing what works and what doesn’t, or what’s harmful and what’s helpful. It’s less of a fight and more of a concerted effort at honest communication aimed at understanding.
Through all of the fun and tears we strive to create love and act out of rationality and reason. It’s less exciting than the love stories we’ve been told and sounds less sexy than the hyperbole of unoriginal wedding vows, but it’s the closest thing to being human that I can imagine. If Heather and I love each other enough we will bring another human into a world where creativity, rationality, and reason are the concepts dangling above the crib, slowly spinning on a hand-stitched mobile as stubby, wrinkly fingers reach for the sky. Instead of pursuing imaginary fantasies we are writing our story one thoughtful camera click and pen stroke at a time.