Behind the Scenes 2020
January 15, 2021
Happy Monday, friends ❤ Since 2018, Sarah and I have prepared a Behind-the-Scenes recap of each year — a peek behind the curtain of the life of professional wedding photographers!
And although we had NO idea what was coming, 2020 started off like just a normal year.
We shot a few cold engagement sessions…
And we even shot a couple if winter and early-Spring weddings! *Sigh* Those were simpler times.
Then, in March… everything changed.
Weddings that had once been 150+ guests were down to 10 or 12.
We’re confident that you are WELL aware by now: 2020 was not the year any of us expected it to be…
However, despite all the difficulty and strangeness, some things didn’t change — global pandemic or not!
For instance, Sarah still did her best to blend into nature.
Even if she wasn’t very successful…
Meanwhile, Hunter was still obsessed with our brides’ details.
Like, c’mon man, get a hobby or something 🙄
And of course, we were both still willing to do anything for the shot. We’d climb on rocks…
Or whatever else was nearby…
We joined our couples under the veil, and even got covered in leaves as we threw them at our couples!
Sarah avoided getting her hair nommed on by horses (cue the Jaws music — Sarah is VERY allergic to horses),
And we put our lives on the line with the most vicious and terrify dogs 😂
And of course, if Sarah wasn’t quite tall enough (all 5’2″ of her), she could always just hold her camera in the air and pretend to be 6-foot tall!
Although ironically, sometimes it wasn’t about getting extra height, but getting extra low.
And that doesn’t just go for Sarah!
Apparently, she sometimes managed to sneak her yoga workout in while on a photoshoot!
Now that’s multitasking!
Another thing that didn’t change was Hunter’s attempt to give our couple’s long-distance high-fives in the middle of their shoots!
Uhm Hunter… I think they’re a little busy at the moment…
Or maybe he was just shielding his lens from the sun.
Who knows?! 🤷♂️
We also continued to serve as crowd-control experts.
Which certainly helps with a wedding party photos of 20+ people!
On a business side, 2020 somehow ended up still being a pretty strong year for us.
For one thing, we got to continue practicing our favorite hobby: pretending to be on a picnic to capture a surprise proposal!
And Hunter continued to experiment with shooting film…
Even if he DID look ridiculous holding two digital cameras and a film camera sometimes.
We also got to continue the HSP Apprenticeship Program…
Where we bring on a small team of newer photographers and train them in their shooting and business.
We bring them along on wedding days…
Giving them pointers during the slow moments of the day…
Letting them shoot over our shoulders a bit…
But mostly teaching them how to have fun while loving and serving our couples, just like they’ll do for their own couples one day!
We couldn’t have asked for a better team than Kelly, Wes and Eilish this year!
And speaking of teams, we got to work with some really wonderful wedding vendors this year too!
From venue managers who personally drove us around their properties, to wedding planners not afraid to do some heavy lifting and get their hands dirty…
(figuratively of course — nothing but clean hands this year)
It made our jobs that much easier (and more fun!) to work with such incredible teams.
2020 was also a year of shooting at some really gorgeous locations! From flowering orchards…
To the oceanfront.
In front of beautiful architecture…
And even a crumbling palace.
We caught a LOT of breathtaking sunsets…
And more stunning mountain views than we can count.
We shot in front of monuments and greenhouses…
And even shot a proposal from inside a hot air balloon!
Not to mention a desert engagement session in Phoenix, AZ and a sunrise engagement session in Austin, TX… in the same week!
But no matter what location we were shooting in, we never stopped walking our couples through every step of the process…
Knowing that sometimes it was easier to show than to explain.
“Yeah, and put your arm around her just like this.”
And whether we were guiding them through some direction…
Orrrr just making a joke to lighten the mood 😂
We were always doing whatever we could to help our couples feel confident and comfortable in front of us and our cameras!
Sometimes that meant refluffing a wedding dress.
Even if it was a 2-person job!
Oh and by the way, after 75+ weddings, Sarah is a professional dress-bustler.
And Hunter can pin a boutonniere in just a few seconds!
We also got to shoot a few jobs that had a lot of personal meaning to us. Like the wedding of Sarah’s Maid of Honor (where she pulled bridesmaid-photographer double duty!)
And that time we tricked my brother’s girlfriend into another “practice engagement session”, which ended up being her and my brother’s surprise proposal!
Of course, 2020 wasn’t all beautiful wedding days and fun engagement sessions. For one thing, it meant lots of 12+ hour days running around in a mask.
And communicating in those things — especially wrangling large crowds — is NOT easy.
But we know so many healthcare workers (the real MVPs of the 2020) who do it every single day. So as cases skyrocketed in the winter and our N95s (leftover from the basement reno) replaced our cloth masks, we wore them with a smile.
There were also a handful of rough days in 2020 when the weather just refused to cooperate.
But the show must go on! Even in a torrential downpour.
And of course there were also the… stranger moments of 2020.
We could explain these photos… but we think they’re better without context 😂
And of course, one thing that went by the wayside with COVID was the #sheldonsandwich. We only captured 6 of them before COVID hit 😭
Although we attempted a handful of modified sandwiches throughout the year… it just wasn’t the same 😞
And if there were two things that most certainly did NOT change in 2020 it was this: Sarah makes funny faces during test shots…
And we LOVE to obliviously walk into each other’s shots.
Or sometimes run.
We call this move, Hunter’s “Oh crap! Were you shooting here?!”
“Better run before Sarah notices!”
I mean, seriously. These are some real high-quality pieces of artwork!
But in the end, everything that 2020 threw at the wedding industry didn’t stop us from capturing 11 surprise proposals…
More than 60 engagement sessions…
And 26 intimate elopements and weddings!
We even snapped a few photos of each other!
And in November, had our own photos taken for the first time in a couple of years!
All in all, despite the many challenges that 2020 presented, we still love each other, love serving our couples, and are still convinced that we have the best job in the world.
Here’s to a 2021 that’s MUCH better than 2020!
With love,
Hunter and Sarah
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If you can’t get enough behind-the-scenes goofiness, check out the rest of our BTS Annual Reviews!