Elke and Jan : A Terrible Weather Forecast Turns into a Golden Engagement Shoot

There’s nothing quite as predictable as the unpredictable Dutch weather. Especially in Spring. Especially when you plan an engagement photoshoot at a historic watermill for golden hour like I planned with Elke and Jan.

Another thing that’s predictable is that I’m going to upload the photos after an engagement or family photo session and spend the next few days sighing over how cute the people are that I’ve photographed.

I’ve never considered myself overly emotional – I mean my sisters and I used to laugh at my mom when she cried watching movies and I prided myself on never crying. I used to read letters to the editor at the local university as an exercise in reading a provocative opinion without reacting. What I’m saying is I’m practised and pretty even keel. But there’s something about obvious love and connection that just touches me deep in my soul and makes me sigh. Engagement photoshoots do that to me.

So if you can just imagine, as I’m trying to write this post, I pause every few minutes to sigh and smile, and then tell anyone near me including the cat how much I love engagement photo sessions. These are included in my wedding packets without extra cost because I find it so important to get to know my couples, for them to get to know me, and for us to build a comfortable rapport for the wedding day.

Elke and Jan were referred to me from Britney & Djurhi, owners of Tweede Thuis restaurant in Nuenen and neighbours of mine. I loved photographing Britney and Djurhi’s wedding at the historic villa in Helmond last September, and it pleases me to no end knowing they’re referring me to other potential clients. That’s the highest compliment I can receive.

When Elke & Jan contacted me in October of last year and told me about their micro wedding planned for family and friends in the heart of Nuenen, I knew I wanted to be their photographer

An expat myself, I actually highly value a sense of place. So when Elke and Jan told me they were planning to be married in the Van Goghkerkje, and then to celebrate at the restaurant Tweede Thuis, I knew this was the perfect wedding for me to photograph. There’s just something so personal and beautiful about keeping things local and centred on the people who matter most.

With the location of their wedding and celebration in mind, we brainstormed possible engagement photoshoot locations in the area. I like to schedule engagement shoots with Amy Harper couples at least a couple of months before the wedding date. But with Elke and Jan having chosen a wedding date of 15 May, I knew we needed to wait until the end of March to take an edge off the dreary late winter landscape. We decided to hold the session at two locations within our gemeente, the Collse watermill made famous by Vincent van Gogh, and the Kamerven in the Stiphoutse woods.

Of course we also needed to keep an eye on the weather

Last year was the wettest winter on record, and many fields and forests still stand ankle deep in water that has nowhere else to go. I’d been keeping particular eye on the Kamerven. What is usually an open heath with grasses, heather, and a small pond or two had become a lake that filled the whole field and sent messengers out into the surrounding forest. Whilst this is impressive on nature’s part, it can cause problems with an engagement photoshoot.

We’d planned our photoshoot for golden hour as well, and as I saw how dark the skies remained around our photoshoot hour, I began to second guess myself on my timing. I’d used an app called The Photographer’s Ephemeris to help plan our session, but I still worried that if it was very overcast, I’d lose the natural light I love too quickly. News like hearing Eindhoven had broken its previous record for the number of rainy days in the past did little to assuage my nerves.

But to be perfectly honest, I always have a bit of nerves before a photoshoot. I’ve learned this is very normal for me and I even laugh about it, even while stressing. I guess knowing I get nervous about photoshoots just goes to show how unremarkably human I am and that I take my work seriously. So there I was a small nervous ball of stress worried about lighting, posing, and mud in the days leading up to the photoshoot.

And of course the dreaded text message: rain forecast

The text came from Elke: rain was forecast at the time when we’d planned to begin the engagement photoshoot at the Collse Watermolen. I do continue outdoor photoshoots in the rain, but I base it on the photoshoot itself and the comfort level of my couples and families. Having Elke text me about the weather let me know she would rather not have a rain shower featured in her engagement photoshoot.

And that is all I needed to know what I should do. I messaged her if we could possible move it to the next evening at the same time because the weather was forecast to be clear, or if she’d rather hold the photoshoot earlier in the day Monday. I should say that though the Dutch weather system is not 100% precise, it does give rain updates divided down to the hour and is reliable enough to make or break plans with.

Elke & Jan chose the rain delay, and switched their photoshoot to the following evening. This was also fine with me, since Tom was busy all of that Monday with a metrology assessment for RVA. Of course then the forecasted rain didn’t even show up! To be fair, it had rained hard over the weekend and earlier in the day.

To the watermill

I always like to arrive early to a session or wedding. That way I can have a walk around, check what is happening with the ambient light, and be on the lookout for any amazing angles or perspectives that I can use during my active time photographing. I noticed straight away that the location was muddy, but was still passable without becoming stuck. Fortunately the water had definitely receded from mid winter, when the whole area was flooded.

But I thought of our second location and realised it would be just as muddy if not muddier. It does have sandier portions, too, but I could imagine if you’d dressed for an engagement session you’d hardly feel like sinking in mud.

Elke and Jan arrived on time, and Elke explained how after reading my Bridal Guide, they’d carefully chosen their outfits for their engagement photos. I was happy to hear that she’d actually read the guide & followed the instructions – which meant no moiré effect in the photos for me or for my couple. Moiré happens when a small scale pattern interferes with the camera sensor’s own pixel pattern and can cause strange waves, dots, patterns and colours to appear in the photos.

With a bit of creativity, reassurance, and timing, we caught golden hour and captured beautiful lasting memories together

One of the things I love about photography, besides the amazing people I meet and the love stories I get to capture, is the fact that it is so much more than showing up and pushing a button. I started posing Elke & Jan, and gauging their comfort level with posing and with me as their photographer. They were so easy to work with and such a joy to be with!

As we continued our photo session, I kept the changing light in mind as I set up positions and poses. With a bit of an overcast sky, sometimes the sun would shine directly and other times it would be diffused behind cloud cover. Since I shoot in manual, this is something I constantly adapted for. In fact, Jan commented how he’d never noticed the way light can vary so dramatically and the impact it has on images before.

We came across just a couple other location challenges that we were able to resolve together with a bit of creativity, reassurance, and timing.

The creativity: me pulling rotting wood together for Elke & Jan to stand on so they didn’t sink into the mud at the bend in the river

When showing up to a location for a photoshoot, a photographer obviously has far less control over the environment than do studio photographers. As I’d mentioned before, the ground around the watermill was muddy. There was a bend in the river that both Elke and I wanted to photograph, so I set about finding a way to carefully pose them in the muddy bend without them sinking too far in. I spotted a pile of rotted wood and carefully hauled a couple pieces over for them to stand on and slow the sinking. In this way and working quickly, I was able to back up and capture the landscape photo I was composing.

Not me reassuring my couple I could easily eliminate the piece of toilet paper someone had left behind

I am careful on my assurances with what I can and cannot edit out of images, and I try to place my couples in positions that require as little post processing in Photoshop as possible simply because it provides me & my couples better images with less cost and stress. Not only that, I’ll happily tidy a location up before a photoshoot simply because I want my couples to have their best possible experience.

But I do draw the line at wet toilet paper in the grass. I didn’t come equipped with a hazmat suit. Fortunately, I knew I didn’t even need to leave Lightroom to edit that bit of unfortunate litter out later. So I reassured Elke and Jan that the toilet paper wouldn’t be making their engagement photo album.

With only a short golden hour due to the overcast skies, we stayed at the Collse Watermill and were rewarded with my favourite photo from the whole session

Keeping the light in mind, we decided we’d lose too much light heading to the Kamerven, and we knew portions of it would be unreachable with recent rainfall. So we chose to stay at the watermill and were rewarded on the way out with this golden location. Elke was admiring the coppiced willow trees in the background and wondered how we could incorporate them into the photoshoot.

I said don’t worry and pose here, and then we had this beautiful lighting and location. I love the way the old fences frame Elke and Jan. Just know that from here, due to mud, water, and stinging nettle, we could walk no further! North Brabant will eventually dry out, but it won’t be this March.

Fortunately, by taking a rain delay, we were able to set this golden hour photoshoot in the light it deserved and avoid getting to muddy or wet. I truly enjoyed photographing Elke & Jan, and am fully looking forward to photographing their wedding the Van Goghkerkje in May!

Liefs, Amy