Shannon + Dave

Shannon and Dave celebrated their wedding last month, but I wanted to post these photos and tell the story of how we met first. In April 2007, Jessica and I were at The Cliff House in Maine for a weekend conference. We had just sat down at the restaurant overlooking the coast at sunset, and I noticed Shannon and Dave sitting next to us. They're about our age and were dressed up, and I was compelled to ask them if I could photograph them (which did not come easily to me). They were there celebrating their engagement and scoping out the place as a wedding location. Shannon was understandably hesitant (and even thought that Dave had planned this), but Dave was willing--primarily because his camera battery had died, and they really wanted some photos of themselves there.

He was able to convince her, and we agreed to meet in 30 minutes. I ran back to my room to grab my Canon 10D and 50mm 1.8 (my sharpest lens at the time), and then tried to calm my nerves. We had unbelievable light as we climbed the rocks for 20-30 minutes and simply had a great session. I don't know that I've ever met anyone who were as comfortable in front of the camera.

Among other things that resulted from this meeting (besides asking me to photograph their wedding), the first photo below is one of my all-time favorites. Thanks again to Shannon and Dave, whose trust and willingness to help had a tremendous effect on what I'm doing today.