Couples Session | Long Hunter State Park

I “graduated” from Vanderbilt University amidst corona in May of this year, and to celebrate (and make my mama happy) I needed graduation photos! Of course, I called on Abbey Hunter, one of my closest friends and fellow wedding photographer. However, it rained on the day that we originally scheduled the shoot, and so we moved the shoot to another day that week.

However, Abbey then texts me and asks if I would be down to do a couples session with her on the same day as my grad shoot. A couple had won a mini session with her and the day with the best weather for a while seemed to be the day that we were already shooting together. If we shot my grad photos a little earlier at Vanderbilt, we could get food somewhere and then head over to Long Hunter State Park and hang out with Kyle and Johannah.

I, of course, said ABSOLUTELY. I rarely turn down a couples session because they’re just so FUN.

The day rolls around and I get all dolled up for my grad photos. Fun fact: I actually LOVE being in front of the camera. It’s kinda crazy because I HATED having my photos taken when I was growing up, which is how I fell in love with photography in the first place (I didn’t want to be in front of the camera, so I got behind the camera, oops). BUT, I love it now. I love making a fool of myself and dancing like an idiot and smiling SUPER big, and I think that’s what makes photography so FUN. You just do you, and let the camera catch a glimpse of the real you. However, it was not a change I made overnight — I had to become more confident in who I was and just enjoy being me.

I then grabbed a couple of photos of Abbey — she was doing a giveaway and needed some photos for that. Then we headed over to Satay to grab dinner, my first time going to a restaurant to eat for all of quarantine. It was weird walking in, since we were the only customers. The only other people in the store was the lady who worked the register and a man who was cleaning the tables the entire time that we were eating. It’s crazyyyy how much COVID-19 has changed our lives.

We finally get to Long Hunter State Park and Abbey shows me around since it’s my first time there. And mannnn — someone come do another shoot with me there because this place is GORGEOUS. There are many trees and open fields — truly photographer heaven. Then, Kyle and Johannah show up and we all have a BLAST, frolicking in the grass and just chatting. We tried to drive down to the lake for some sunset photos, but the area was already closed (insert sad face) and so we headed back up to a different open field.

Johannah and Kyle won this session with Abbey, and they were truly the SWEETEST. Johannah is a fellow wedding photographer as well, and they drove about an hour out to come hang out with us. You can check out her work here! Kyle works in construction and got in a fairly bad accident recently that injured his back, but he still had a smile on his face and was enjoying the time with his wife. The both of them were seriously MODELS (I mean, you can already tell) and whenever we told them that they would just laugh, not believing us. But MAN, they really are.

Check out these photos! I’m seriously obsessed with them.