Jeremy + Rachael’s Engagement | Spring Grove

I was able to fit in a last minute engagement yesterday of Jeremy and Rachael before photographing my afternoon wedding at Cox Arboretum in Dayton.  The engagement took place at the legendary Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. We spent close to two hours exploring the grounds and I loved the results. I used a lot of off-camera flash in High Sync mode to take care of the 12 noon high sun and the dreaded “raccoon eye” effect. Raccoon eyes occur when so called “Natural light photographers” don’t use fill-flash to separate the subject from background and in high contrast environments cause the eye sockets to become very dark. It is not a very pleasant sight.

Also during the engagement, I used a B&W circular polarizing filter to really pop the blues in the sky and reduce the reflectivity of the water. Here are some of my favorite images with various finishing touches.