Quirky Engagement Ideas: recreate your first kiss, first date, or the place you got engaged! 🌈 Guelph, Ontario engagement with Hudson + Rochelle:

I don’t know where to begin this one. All I want to do is write “LOVE! LOVE! LOVE!”

But that’s obnoxious of me, so let’s back up.

All you need is love. And a bit of context.

I first met Hudson and Rochelle when they inquired about wedding photography with me after hearing about me from a friend. A very cool and quirky friend who’d been a bridesmaid at another Guelph wedding I’d shot that same year, with the coolest name ever: Scarlett. [whispers: “thank you Scarlett” 😍]

Of course, if you know me, you might already be picturing the scenario in your head: inquiry comes in, I do a little happy dance, I call the couple, and do another happy dance when I realize it’s a referral through a friend.

Then I’m happy dancing all the way through that phone conversation, and later through the skype call while meeting with Hudson & Rochelle “face to face”.

First impressions over skype give all the feels

I loved them immediately. They were open and honest about their vision and what was important to them: they are queer and she is black and they wanted their photographer to know what the hell they’re doing with dark-skin tones and not erase all the family members by exposing the photographs incorrectly (Rochelle had actually seen a wedding photographer do this, and was justifiably horrified/saddened/baffled). Quirky Love Photography is proudly and loudly queer positive and body positive and welcoming of all humans and their love.

Anyway, Rochelle and Hudson asked me all the questions, and I felt we really connected. A few days later, they confirmed the feeling was mutual when they asked me to be their wedding photographer officially. ❤️

---

ASIDE: On the aesthetics of representation

No photographer worth ANYTHING should be so blind as to expose the photographs for white people only. Like… come on! However, my outrage aside, much of our media historically - big blockbuster movies included - have not been good to black folks and people of colour. To quote a Guardian article “cinema has pandered to white skin for decades”.

Photography has not fared much better.

As the blogger Aundre Larrow explains, “From the 1950s well into the 1980s, Kodak, the standard in film processing, provided photo labs with “Shirley cards,” photos meant to be used to calibrate skin tones and light levels for photo printing. There were many “Shirleys” over the decades (the name came from the original model)—but as you might assume, they were all fair-skinned Caucasian women.”

Black photographer Syreeta Mcfadden elaborates in this NPR piece: “A lot of [the design of film and motion technology] was conceived with the idea of the best representation of white people. And I don't mean to say that it was a deliberate and exclusionary practice, but [it was] much more of a willful obliviousness, if you will. So color film in its early stages pretty much developed around trying to measure the image against white skin.”

Well, I think that’s inexcusable. It’s time to do better. For my part, and after having read multiple pieces like the ones above, I aim to be more cognizant of varying skin tones and the unique challenges of doing them all justice photographically. I believe the first step to representing people properly is SEEING.❤️

(I’d welcome any thoughts on this from black photographers or black folks who’ve been photographed by white photographers and experienced the aesthetic white-bias talked about above. Please feel free to leave me a comment below!).

---

Planning their engagement session

Shortly after that, we began to plan how to best capture some lovey photos (in what we loosely term an “engagement session”). Initially we thought we’d do it in Toronto (where they currently reside), or in Kingston (where I live). But we settled on Guelph because that city has a special place in their hearts: it’s where they met, and courted (somewhat awkwardly at the beginning, if you hear them tell the tale, though I’m sure it was adorable as anything), had their first date, their first kiss… Guelph was the natural place to take engagement photos!

Going to Guelph to photograph love ❤️ 🌈

So, we met up there, at a downtown cafe, on a cold and blustery day in December. After chatting over coffee (during which time I had PLANNED on taking photographs, but didn’t), my feeling of ease with them grew to new levels. I felt - as frequently happens with quirky love-birds - that we were long-lost friends.

(BTW, Quirky Love-Birds are the folks who gravitate toward Quirky Love Photography and end up becoming cherished clients and friends. If you’re reading this, chances are you’re a Quirky Love Bird. Many belong to the LGBTQ+ community, somewhere in that rainbow. ALL are allies/advocates. All believe in the transformational power of love, queer or not. ALL take themselves less than seriously and just want to have a good time with the one they love, and end up with photos that MEAN something to them. Not the cheesy cliche stuff, but real, true-to-them stuff.).

It was cold, but Rochelle had spent a long time searching for the perfect yellow tulle skirt, so Hudson helped her put it on over her tights. It instantly created a whimsical far-away-and-not-in-slushy-Ontario kind of vibe. I LOVED that she wore it. Paired with the cute denim vest, it was beautiful - and super fun to make those colours pop during editing!

Our first “official” photo took place shortly after this: we were crossing the street and I asked them to stand in the middle of the crosswalk for a second, while I pulled back a bit and shot the scene with this building with two peaks as the backdrop. (what is this building, by the way? I can do the homework, but I’ve got a blog to write!)

What happens under the gazebo….

After this, we headed to the gazebo, which was a super important place for both of them. They’d shared their first kiss there and later they got engaged there exactly a year ago! It was all too serendipitous. Their engagement story is so sweet and hilarious; but it’s theirs to tell. I’ll just say that Rochelle literally didn’t get it was all for her - despite the romantic lighting and engagement vibes - until the VERY end…

Joy is in their hearts: it spills out & fills up others

After the gazebo, we took a stroll through the park, and things happened fast: there were photographs of them snuggling under a tree (and some butt-grabs), there were snuggly photos of them sitting on the bench making pretty eyes at each other, there were kissy photos, there were Canada goose photos, river-bank photos… We even went to a covered bridge and did some Vogue-style photos. These two - although they claim they’re awkward in front of the camera - were actually amazing. I suspect it’s because they’re theatre folks, and used to being on the spot. THEY DIDN’T STOP LAUGHING AND SMILING! It was joyful ❤️ (and way less stressful for me, because I always want people to be having fun at photo-sessions, and if you’re not laughing, I’m going to try to get you laughing. But with Hudson and Rochelle, there was no need to do anything to induce joy: it was just there in overflowing amounts.

Here are just some of the photos we captured.

---

The last thing we did was visit a local bus stop on campus, which had meaning for them. We took photographs with a bear. Of course, I also asked them to pose for a “Love in the time of Communism” photograph, which I try to do whenever I can remember. If you’d like to read more about this series, check out the “Personal Aside” below. Or you can skip directly to a happy photo of Hudson & Rochelle that closes out this blog below :)

PERSONAL ASIDE. “Love in the time of Communism”: the series, and what it means to me.

“Love in the time of Communism” is on its face a silly take on a rather somber topic. I grew up in communist Bulgaria, and much of private lives there had to be kept a secret. My grandfather used to shut himself in his room and illegally tune in to radio transmissions from the West: something that could have gotten him jail time. We also believe he might have been gay. He worked abroad a lot, and much of his life there remains a secret. “Love in the time of Communism” is a series that means a lot to me, particularly since some of the communist states held harsh and punitive penal codes against folks in LGBTQ communities. Without initially trying to make a statement with this series of photographs, I’ve realized that I am in fact, through the photographs, projecting my retrospective wishes that LGBTQ folks - despite all the hardships - were nevertheless able to lead happy lives together, warmed by the strength of their love. I was just a child when this system toppled, so I never asked these questions then. Anyway, I thank every couple - queer or not - who allows me to take a photograph of them under what I call the “Love in the times of Communism” series, because the bottom-line message is and always has been this:

Love is love;

love unites us;

love wins all in the end.

Wrap-up: How a cold winter Ontario day turns into a happy love-filled escape

Alas, the blog has come to an end. But not this story; this story of love - Rochelle & Hudson’s love for each other - continues on! I will be photographing their wedding later this year, and I can’t wait to share that story with you. I’m already so excited, not just because I’ve heard their plans and their venue looks amazing, but also because after having met and photographed them, I’m so in love with both of them and their story. I’ll be counting the days!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog. If you have read this far, please leave me a comment below. For instance, if you have any answers about the following: what was queer love in the time of communism really like? And what is that building in Guelph that is in the first photograph of the blog?