Today we feature day two of Shelby and Mike’s amazing, destination engagement session with traveling photographer, Steven Miller, of Steven Miller Photography Orlando!! Shelby and Mike hired us to travel with them to one of our favorite National Parks, the Grand Canyon, in Arizona!! We spent two days showing them around the park, all while capturing their engagement photos!! Although they are celebrating their wedding day in back home Florida, they wanted to do something VERY different for their e-session!! During the first day, we took them to one of our favorite secret locations in the park, secluded from large parking lots and crowds, and fully surrounded by the grandeur of the canyon!! Of course we ended day one with a very late night-sky portrait session, staying up late into 3:00 AM, which was necessary to capture the massive Milky Way Galaxy high above them!
Of course, day two started off a bit later so we could sleep in and re-energize from the dark-sky session! After a quick lunch, we drove right back into the park, and began capturing again!! This time, we opted for a more traditional excursion, and hiked along a portion of the Bright Angel Trail! This trail is a very populated hiking route, which can take you all the way down into the canyon to the famous Phantom Ranch, which is a challenging 10 mile hike down!! Suffice it to say, we….did not hike that far! We took it easy and slowly made our way down, stopping at various scenic locations for photos! Hilariously, Shelby continually received strange looks and comments from fellow hikers asking if she was planning on hiking the entire trail in her high-heels, which of course she was not! We mentioned she should totally lie and say ‘Of COURSE!’, but she explained that she would switch to her hiking shoes when not posing for photos! :)
After a couple hours of exploring the Bright Angel Trail, we packed it up and hiked it back up to the rim, and drove back to our secret spot for one more sunset session!! We had much more portrait time on day two here, so we took advantage of the beautiful Ponderosa Pine forest-scape before hiking out to the canyon again! After watching another spectacular Arizona sunset, we headed back for dinner again!
Much to the shock of Steven, he managed to convince Shelby and Mike to try another night sky portrait session this night as well!! When you’re planning sessions like this, you have to keep the moon in mind, making sure it’s not in the sky if you wish to truly get dark-sky images filled with stars! However, the moon was to be in the sky throughout the night, so Steven wanted instead to try more portraits with natural moonlight (quite an extreme for natural light!!). They agreed, and crossed our fingers that the wind would take a temporary break…of course…it didn’t…The excessive wind forced us to pack it in pretty early, but we were still able to capture a few great shots!! Sadly enough, the end of this session meant goodbye for us all!! Shelby and Mike continued to enjoy their Grand Canyon vacation, while Steven continued his drive up to, and through, Utah! These states out west are seriously home to some of the most beautiful landscapes AND darkest night skies, and we hope we were able to feature Shelby and Mike beautifully within them all! We hope these two enjoy their engagement session sneak peeks, and keep us in mind for their next adventure!!
Arizona Engagement Photographer: Steven Miller of Steven Miller Photography
Arizona Photography Locations: Grand Canyon National Park | Bright Angel Trail