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Jared Polin, Froknowsphoto.com and what I want to give you guys right now is a first
person perspective of a proposal that I photographed not too long ago for a friend.
Now a proposal, as in he is asking his girlfriend to marry him, so this is going to be pretty
darned interesting, but I used the GoPro to film this proposal, but also film a couple
of pieces of commentary before the couple showed up to get their photos taken so I am
going to send you over to the park right now, so watch two different clips of me talking
about the ideas before the shoot happens, keep in mind the audio from the GoPro was
pretty terrible, but right after you see that, we are going to get into commentary of the
actual proposal.
Okay, so I am joining a well surprising engagement thing that a friend asked me to do so, I am
spotted like yeah it’s twenty minutes before so I wanted to find my location.
I am exactly where they told me to be, which is right here and they want to do it like
right here, so I want to make sure I don’t get the damn trashcan in there, the light
is interesting, so I am going to test it out first eh and we will see what we get after
we do that.
So it’s gonna be somewhere around here, I got the seventy to two hundred, brand new
one right here on the D 5, gonna get some settings and then I am going to hide in a
corner somewhere and I will try to film it.
Alright.
Wish me luck.
So another thing I am doing is I am making sure I am set to roll, I am making sure my
exposure is right, I am making sure that my focus point is going to be at the upper most
part because when somebody gets on their knee, I want to get them in the image as well as
the person and her reaction.
So I’m not worried about the super tight shot, I’m more worried about the kneeling,
getting him in it, pulling the ring up as she then does whatever she is going to do,
so that’s how I am preparing.
I am going to put the focus point on her, not on him, because her back is supposed to
be to the park, so that I can shoot into the park and not have that, as a background.
I want the park as a background.
I really have to pee though, I have to pee, but I gotta be ready for this.
Alright, here is the actual lead up to the proposal, I think that is them walking in
the distance back there actually, but I can’t see that far personally.
Okay, keep in mind you got this kid right here, alright, so you see the kid, now enter
from the left, you see this lady with the dog right here, yep, remember her for later,
and here we go.
So I am trying not to be seen.
I’ve prepared, I’m ready for this point, I’m ready for the shoot to happen, and that’s
them actually walking in the distance right here.
So they walk into the park, I know what’s going on, I’ve never met her and she has
never met me so she probably won’t recognize me so I am sneaking along, making my move,
I’m like tudutudu with my back turned and then just as I turn I realize he went the
wrong way.
So that’s why I turned my back like this because he went back into the park.
Now here, watch what’s going on, there is that kid from before, he’s, I pointed him
to get out of the way, nicely, I’m prepared here, I’m waiting, and then boom, he’s
on his knees.
I’m taking pictures.
You hear a bunch of rapid fire shots that is because I’ve got to get the action, I
don’t have a lot of time to do this, she’s happy, she’s cheering, she’s jumping and
he’s off his knee.
You see that.
That was literally something like ten or eleven seconds where I had time to actually get one
really good photo.
That is not a lot of time and I will tell you, I was nervous going into this.
People wondered, Jared, do you get nervous on photo shoots, yes, I absolutely get nervous
because I know I have one chance to get this right and who know it will only be eleven
seconds to get it.
When I first started, I turned VR off, because I was at one one thousandth of a second, I
am like I don’t need VR for this then I realized my hand was shaking and I am like,
yeah, I probably should put VR on, on the new seventy to two hundred two point eight,
by the way this was the first time I was using it on an actual photo shoot, and I think it
worked out pretty well.
Put the VR on, got the shot that I nee- or got the shots and didn’t shake, now I want
to show you the pictures.
So this is a good photo because you see her covering her mouth, she is realizing what’s
going on, what’s happening, and good thing was that Scott listened to me when I told
him to make sure that her back is pointed in, her back is to the park so I’m shooting
into the park, that’s what’s important.
Next one, oh my God, it’s setting in to then jubilation and you saw her jump, you
saw how fast that happened, it was pretty darned quick and this shot right here is my
favorite shot.
Why is it my favorite shot?
Because you can still sort of see, you know he is holding a box there, it would have been
nicer if I was a little bit further to the right, to possibly get the ring in there,
but like I said, I didn’t know where any of this was going to happen, but what I love
is that she is off the ground.
She is floating in air, you can see she is smiling and happy, she is probably going to
say yes at that point, and those four shots are what I absolutely love.
All it really takes is getting one great shot of them in this situation and I think I got
a handful, but especially that one where she is floating, that’s the one that I think
yells yes because she is in mid air.
If it was a no, she would have smacked him and punched him and kneed him in the face
or something and walked away.
So that was that part.
Now I am going to continue on, I’m just going to let you listen as other things happen,
remember the lady with the dog, keeping ear out for what’s going on as well as for how
many shots or what the shots are that I am taking and then I will come back and talk
a little bit more.
So that’s pretty much it.
I wanted to let that roll in real time, so you could hear what was going on with the
lady’s, I was honestly about to cry, I was really jealous that he was getting engaged
and I was like ah, this is so sad and then this lady starts yelling like is this real,
is this real and I am not going to stop, I have to pay attention and take the photos.
I was shaking my head and then she was like, oh, there is a photographer, but yeah, it
was, it was real and it happens really darned quick, here, here’s what the lady looks
like, she came up to congratulate them at the end, she was like, oh, this was amazing
and she was obviously very happy and excited for them.
She thought it was a movie thing or something fake, but honestly yes, it was real.
So the moral of the story here is how much shooting time did I actually have, a minute
and a half or less, I had eleven seconds is what I counted from the time he got onto his
knee to the time he got off of his knee to get the photos.
What that means is you need to be prepared before the couple ever shows up to get the
shots.
You need to make sure you’re in roll.
You may ne- you need to make sure you’re settings are atleast tested in the area that
your going to be shooting.
You need to make sure you’re in continuous focus if that’s where you want to be and
I even set the focus point to the top for when I was going to be vertical because I
knew, I, I didn’t want to futz around and move it and you don’t want it on autofoc-
you want it on autofocus, but you don’t want the camera selecting the autofocus point
for you because what if it gets the persons back and not the girl smiling, so that’s
pretty much it.
We did a couple more photos after because it is always nice to get a ring shot, it is
always nice to get a shot of them together being all lovey-dovey, I love the black and
white that I ended up capturing of them, that is an awesome shot and I ended up giving them
some prints from the day and ordered them some AdoramaPix, metal prints so they can
hang them on the wall because that is my gift to them.
So my friend asked me to do it and I went ahead and captured their proposal, very happy
I was able to do it, didn’t know that it was going to happen so darned quick, but that
is a real look, a first person perspective of somebody getting engaged so hopefully that
if you ever get in that situation, hopefully you don’t miss the shot because it happens
so quick.
So that’s it.
Jared Polin, Froknowsphoto.com.
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