bob 2.0 + jen anniversary shoot

Sunday Mike and I had one of the most fun shoots- it was an Anniversary Shoot for Bob 2.0 and his wife Jen in the central western part of the state. One of the only stipulations was that we wanted to shoot near horses so I called my good friend Julia who just happens to own a horse farm in West Granby and she was more than happy to let us come shoot at her place!
So on the way we drove through Simsbury and there is this field that Mike and I LOVE that has this cool old stone barn thingy in it. I have always wanted to stop and shoot someone there but never had anyone...until now!

So we drive up to it and the field turned into WHEAT! I think it was wheat anyway, at least that's what it looks like on TV! It was so beautiful and we were pumped for some trespassing. But. There were no actual 'no trespassing' signs anywhere so were we really breaking the law?

Apparently we were! Those peeps in Simsbury have a block watch in FULL EFFECT! No sooner had we crossed the field (me in freaking flip flops, no less, very very dumb idea) than a guy pulls up, yelling! I was all scared (I am such a scardey cat) so luckily I have Big Mike with me so he volunteers to go investigate... what a nice guy! I kept shooting bc really, I will be DAMNED if I am going to hustle across a wheat field in flip flops almost busting my butt many, many times to have to stop immediately! Turns out he was actually a nice guy but was a little nervous (it wasn't even his land, it's state land) and he tipped us off to other places we could shoot down the road



So rather than us being right in the middle of the field we hung around the perimeter and shot, (which we got approval for) and I had this fabulous idea to lay on my back going down a hill and proceeded to drop my camera on my head (it had my 14-24 on it, which is f n HEAVY) and tried to turn my face real quick bc I KNEW it was going to smart! It clipped my ear and I think I broke the cartilage in my ear or something because it STILL hurts!


I wanted to try some new things and doing some extreme close ups / profiles seemed like something that I don't really do a lot of. I have a series of these where they start off all serious and then progress to them laughing

This is the place our mystery man led us to- it could have been a total trap, it did have all of the makings of a scary movie... some happy go lucky young people, a desolate barn in the middle of no where.....! See why I am so glad Mike comes with me?? No offense Bob, I am sure you would have held your own! :)



So here we are at Julia's awesome horse barn! Her horse Moose was so gentle and pretty he didn't mind us leading him around and just posing with him

Mike was in heaven, he is such an animal lover

Now I knew going into the shoot how much Bob LOVES lens flare. He comments on it all the time, so I felt more than a little pressure to have some sun! And seeing that it was supposed to rain all day kind of bummed me out, I SO wanted Bob to have his proverbial 'day in the sun' if you know what I mean! So we are leaving Starbucks (shocker) and Mike suggests that we just shoot now since it isn't guaranteed that we will be able to rock it anywhere else, there were some clouds...

All I have to say is good call Mr. Mike, we both got some fun shots with some flare, and it was only the beginning of the flare love! We ended up getting a bunch more but I am glad we rocked the parking lot! Yes my feet are super dirty, I was in a wheat field and a horse farm for god's sake! In flip flops! The whole point of this shots was to show you that you can shoot ANYWHERE and get some nice stuff! I shot up on them to get rid of the cars in the background so you would not know where we were

ON our way to a corn field we passed this cool fence and saw the light and were like HALT! So we pulled over and delicately avoided the electric fence



Mike was cracking me up when I shot this- I told him I was getting his calves in the shot and to flex so he did!





We could have shot here all afternoon but at this place we were clearly not supposed to be there, it was private property! But it sure was pretty!



On the way home there was this awesome big red barn across the street from this cool farm stand ice cream hoo ha place. Yes. HALT! We had passed it on the way out and I knew we would be returning because it is so super cool


I love found hearts in places and was pumped to find this rustic cutie

Yeah, a corn field at dusk? Am I TRYING to get killed??? I must be because there were some super scary wild a$$ animals squawking and screaming in the fields while we were shooting- Mike says he thinks it's badgers! Little did I know how vicious badgers really are, so I am hoping it wasn't them- but I googled them just in case and they have been known to chill in corn fields! Yikes!

This is one of my favorite shots from our whole shoot!

And while shooting this I was half in the corn and half out, they are WAY ahead of me, this would have been the prime time for Jason to jump out in his hockey mask and grab me, huh! I like to tempt the scary movie fates and get myself all riled up! It was hilarious as we were walking back Mike threw a stone into the corn to the left of Bob and Jen who were way ahead of us and they freaked out!!!


Bob & Jen we had SO much fun with you guys, thanks for the awesome dinner!!

Check out Mike's killer grabs HERE!!