Ronak reached out a few weeks before to ask about photographing his proposal to Khushbu. He had the ring. He had a rough idea of the beach. What he did not have was a plan for the part that actually decides whether these photographs work, which is timing.
We shot it at Treasure Island Beach in Laguna, on the sand and tide pools below the Montage. Here is how it was put together, in case you are planning one.
Why Treasure Island
Most of the Orange County coast gives you either sand or cliffs. Treasure Island gives you a broad, nearly flat rock shelf that runs out toward the waterline, and at low tide that shelf fills with shallow pools.
Those pools are the reason to shoot here. When the sun gets low they stop reading as water and start reading as mirrors, so the same light lands in the frame twice, once in the sky and once at their feet. You can see it under Ronak's knee in the frame above.
Check the tide before you commit to this spot. At high tide the shelf is underwater and the whole advantage disappears.
Forty minutes before the sun hits the water
This is the number that matters, and most people get it wrong in the same direction. They want the proposal to happen at sunset, right as the sky goes orange.
The problem is that at that exact moment the sun is behind them and their faces are in shadow. You get a pretty sky and two dark shapes. Worse, sunset light changes fast. If the proposal runs three minutes long, you have lost it.
We set the proposal about forty minutes ahead of that. The sun was still high enough to light their faces cleanly, warm but directional, and stable enough that it did not matter whether the moment took two minutes or eight.
Then the sunset was still coming, and by the time it arrived they were engaged, relaxed, and past the nerves. That is when the best pictures of the two of them together happened.
Where to stand
The whole job during the proposal itself is to be invisible and still get the frame. I set up well back with a long lens and used the rock formations as cover.
Ronak knew roughly where I would be. Khushbu did not know I was there at all until it was over, which is the point. Nothing kills the expression on someone's face faster than spotting a camera thirty seconds early.
The one thing worth agreeing on in advance is which direction he faces when he kneels. If he turns the wrong way you are shooting the back of his head and her reaction is hidden behind him.
Turning into the sun
Once the sun dropped to the horizon I stopped lighting them and started shooting into it. Expose for the sky, let them fall to silhouette, and put the sun between them so it flares through the gap.
It is a completely different picture from the ones twenty minutes earlier, and couples almost always end up choosing one of each. The lit frames show who they are. The silhouettes show what the evening felt like.
Stay for blue hour
Most sessions end when the sun goes. The fifteen minutes after are worth staying for. The light goes cool and even, the crowds leave, and the beach reads completely differently. The last frames from this evening came from that window.
The full gallery from this evening is on the Ronak and Khushbu project page.