Chenies Manor Engagement Portrait – Lauren & James

A Stunning Setting For An Engagement Portrait Session

I recently captured some wonderful autumnal engagement portraits for Lauren and James in the fabulous gardens of  Chenies Manor House. I’ve photographed many weddings at the venue over the years, but this was my first engagement session at in the gardens. We’d originally arranged the session to be in the morning, but when we saw that the skies were clearing for the late afternoon, our diaries were soon re-scheduled to suit!

This fun loving couple no doubt fell in love with this historic venue for its glorious gardens, and I have to agree as in every direction it’s truly breathtaking! And boy we got lucky for the session, the late afternoon sunshine was perfect. And amazingly we’d had no autumn frosts, which meant the gardens were bursting with colour in every direction!

It was really bizarre having both autumnal colours and vibrant flower borders at the same time, it’s usually one or the other in late October! But I was not going to miss this opportunity to capture some fabulously colourful portraits for Lauren and James. The biggest problem I had was deciding on the backdrops, there are hundreds to choose from at Chenies Manor!

At times the light was so surreal as it illuminated the strikingly colourful flower borders! This was especially apparent when I opted for some backlit portraits of Lauren and James. The image you see here is the most perfect example of this magical lighting, whilst a little directional lighting on their faces all adds to the effect.

An engagement session is always a great practice run for the big day itself, and for so many couples this is the first time they’ve booked a professional portrait session. And I know this was the case for Lauren and James too! They initially said they were a little camera shy, but by the end of the session they said they really enjoyed having their pictures taken.

The secret is to keep the photo-session as relaxed as possible, so lots of semi posed and natural walking shots usually does the trick! Working quite fast during the session also helps, especially since very few of us really enjoy having our pictures taken. I usually ask couples at some point during the photo-shoot to just be themselves and forget that I’m even here!

Beautiful Gardens – Chenies Manor House

Autumn colours make for magical portraits, and the Virginia Creeper at this time of year stole the show! So from the moment we arrived at Chenies Manor House, I had my eye on this stunningly colourful wall for a portrait. My style is all about vibrant colours, so I’m always going to home in on anything that grabs my attention! These more natural interactions always produce some of the best photographs during a photo-shoot.

Chenies Manor House certainly provided the most incredibly colourful canvas for this very special photo-shoot. I had the easiest of tasks conveying the beauty of these wonderful gardens in my portraits for Lauren and James. As for the weather, wow we were fortunate with the magical lighting!

I hope you enjoyed looking through this small selection of images, these are typical of the range of images I capture during an engagement portrait session. Sure it helps if you give me a magical location like Chenies Manor House for your engagement portraits, but even the simplest of venue’s on a rainy day can produce the most striking results!

Do check out the Chnies Manor gallery on my website, here you can check out lots of pictures from my return trip to Chenies Manor for Lauren and James’s spring wedding day.  Once again the gardens didn’t disappoint, in every direction the backdrops were out of this world. In this collection you’ll see everything from group shots, classic poses, and lots of fun shots from the day!