Category: Couples

Kei+Justin // Couple Portraits

Kei and Justin have been dating for almost four years and wanted to capture some pictures of themselves and their relationship right now, just as it is, for no reason other than they love each other and want to remember this time in their lives. So they booked us for a session and we met them in a park a few days after Hurricane Matthew (our original lakeside location had be completely wiped out in a massive flood). Kei is an early childhood education teacher and Justin is in law enforcement, but despite Justin being a police officer, he’s just as light-hearted and sweet as Kei is, and together they’re two seriously kind people. They are really cuddly, really cute, and love each other a ton. And you kind of can’t help but get wrapped into their adorable looooove!

Although they went to the same high school, they didn’t actually get to know each other until Kei started working in the floral section of Harris Teeter, and Justin would go grocery shopping and stare at her while he ate the fruit samples (yesssss, such a good meeting story). They both really like kid’s movies (Up, Hotel Transylvania, the Good Dinosaur) and we encouraged them to look into the Last Unicorn although it’s crazy depressing (sorry in advance!).  And we ran around the park discussing good and bad television shows and our jobs and how spiders are the absolute worst. In the end, with everyone rushing them to get married already, they wanted to do some Ring Pop engagement photos as a response to the pressure. She then ate her ring and went home. :D

Maggie+Humberto // Durham Engagement.

When Maggie and Humberto sent us an e-mail, they told us that they wanted to have their engagement pictures taken inside Food World. I think I text messaged Geoff first, before responding to the e-mail, with something along the lines of, “WE GOT AN INQUIRY TO TAKE PICTURES INSIDE OF FOOD WORLDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” to which Geoff responded, “YESSSSS, FOOD WORLDDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!” We felt it might be inappropriate to respond to Maggie and Humberto in all caps with that many exclamation marks, so I curbed it as much as I could, but I think there still be might be some caps in there. Food World, for those of you who are unfamiliar, is an international grocery store in Durham. We actually stumbled across it while we were eating snow-cones at Pelican’s one evening; you can see Food World shining on down the hill. We needed cheese, and we figured Food World sounded like a grocery store, so cheese must be in there.

Cheese was indeed in there, but so were pinatas. And bags of rice. And fruit and vegetables that I couldn’t identify. And bags of Japanese candies and cookies and fish that still had their eyeballs. Every flavor of Jarritos imaginable! Bags and bags of dried peppers that I also couldn’t identify! Basically, we walked around Food World in stunned, international silence. It was incredible. Since then, we’ve obtained the knowledge of how to use some of those dried peppers to make General Tso’s, and regularly take out of town visitors on pilgrimages to Food World because it’s amazing. We still don’t know what most of the fruit and vegetables are, and we have yet to purchase a pinata, but small steps, people, small steps.

So the true pinnacle of our photography career was achieved Maggie and Humberto asked us to have photos taken in there. We were so happy someone else appreciated Food World as much as we do. And we were so glad when Food World graciously granted us permission to shoot some engagement pictures inside (always ask permission!). Maggie and Humberto also introduced us to their pastry counter and their taqueria inside! This was something we previously overlooked in our sheer joy to just be inside Food World. Later we also took Maggie and Humberto into downtown Durham and we had fun there, too (because they are awesome people!). But not quiteeeee as much fun as we had in Food World (because Food World).