thoughts on a photo - twenty one

whytecliff park vancouver engagement

This shoot was supposed to happen in the summer but it ended up happening in September. It was 16 degrees out that day and I am so grateful that the couple was still cool with taking a dip for some photos!

We started the shoot with some standard proper photos around Whytecliff park and then delved into more creative stuff. Still very my style, just like the stuff that you see throughout my website. 

As we planned to get in the water, I had three shots in mind and told Caley and Deren on how we were gonna shoot it so that we could get in and get out. When we got into the water it actually wasn’t that bad! We had originally intended on staying in the water for 5-10min max, but ended up staying for around 20. 

When I started shooting, I shot as I normally would have, backlit, slightly over exposed but noticed the it was really bright out and I wasn’t getting a whole lot of detail and feel in the photos. In the heat of the moment, I decided I would change my shoot style and expose for the highlights instead of the shadows like I normally do. 

The results were some of the moodiest photos that I’ve ever taken and I love them! I’m gonna be experimenting with this style moving forward, but will still stick to my bright and airy style as the base for most of my work. I’ll bring in the darker photos when the mood of the photos call for it. My goal is always to create photos that are authentic to the moments that they were created in and sometimes bright and airy isn’t true to what the moment was. 

This photo was taken at Whytecliff Park in Vancouver, BC.

Wilson Lau

Photographer of weddings, and people.