I still remember that first text that started it all. I was sitting in the main office at Triple R Ranch (a FANTASTIC kid’s camp in southern VA), and I felt my phone give a little buzz. “Hey Daniel! My fiancé and I just got engaged, and we were wondering if you would do our engagement pictures? How much do you charge?” I froze. “How much do you charge?” How much do I charge?! Luckily I was quickly able to come up with some arbitrary amount, and they ended up hiring me.

It has been a little over two years since then. Two years of learning and growing. During that time though, as with any profession, I’ve sometimes struggled with things getting a little stale. At this point I’ve got my posing system down. I can take most any couple and create a look that I’m proud of. And, when someone asks me how much I charge, I know exactly what to tell them. I have all of my images backed up, and right now I’m working on getting backups to my backups. I own just about all the equipment I need. I can have a wedding edited and returned within a week’s time. I’m not perfect, but I feel rather confident that I have a pretty solid business model that is sustainable!

But, due to the comfort… it is easy to let business grow stale. It’s not difficult to let everything slowly slide into a rhythm, a boring repetition where photographing couples is something I do out of habit rather than out of a deep desire to draw couples closer together. In the past few months I felt that happening a little and so, in an effort to rectify this, I decided to change things up a little bit by adding a little bit of something new to keep the creative juices flowing.

Now, I know you’re probably getting a little tired of my rambling, and so I won’t belabor the point much further, but below you will see one of my proudest sessions to date. Alexxus and Zach. Two wonderful individuals who were brave enough to volunteer me not only their time, but also their home. =) It all started with an idea. What if I took the posing system that I have been slowly perfecting over the past couple years and translated it into a married couple’s home? Instead of using trees for “the lean,” why not a refrigerator? And instead of steps to sit on, a couch?

I am going to be 100% honest. When I walked into that house, I was out of my elements, and that made me really nervous. But, we stuck it out together, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time.

Turns out Alexxus in an interior designer!

I think this is the coolest headpiece I have ever seen.