My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Part 2: Photos in Edinburgh

This is part 2 of my 2-part series sharing my engagement photos with Ken (Aug 2013). For more about our story, read: How I Found My Soulmate (series) and The Day of My Proposal.

• Part 1: My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Glasgow (Kelvingrove Park, West End)
• Part 2: My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Edinburgh (Tantallon Castle, Cramond Beach, Edinburgh City)

Part 2 features photos from our Edinburgh shoot, shot in iconic Edinburgh spots from Tantallon Castle, to Cramond Beach, to St Giles’ Cathedral, to Edinburgh city! :D

Our Edinburgh Shoot, feat: Tantallon Castle, Cramond Beach, and more!

For our Edinburgh shoot, we had the pleasure of engaging Orange Lemur: run by Joanna and Jan, a husband-wife team. Joanna and Jan are Polish but have been residing in Edinburgh for the past few years. They have been doing wedding photography for five years and know the shooting spots in Edinburgh inside out!

When I told them my ideal scenes for our shoot which include castle, garden, beach, and nature spots, Joanna went out of the way to include them in our four-hour shoot (over two days). She recommended specific shooting spots in Edinburgh which was extremely helpful since we were tourists with no clue on good shooting spots.

Joanna was thoroughly prompt and patient with my concerns, questions, and requests. Joanna and Jan even drove us to our shooting locations — some as far as a 40-minute drive away from Edinburgh City (Tantallon Castle) — at no extra cost!

Sneaking a quick shot during our Tantallon Castle shoot (A selfie taken by ourselves)

Joanna and Jan were very generous with the photographs: they shortlisted and sent us 220 photos from our two-day / four-hour shoot featuring various locations in and around Edinburgh City.

In the end, we shortlisted 29 photos for our wedding album. Like our Glasgow shots, I made some color adjustments, photographic refinements, and minor retouching, but full props definitely go to Joanna and Jan for the wonderful photos.

Here are the photos: :)

Hand in hand, at St Giles’ Cathedral. :) Really love the colors in the photo.

Gentle gaze

Feels like we were having our private moment and someone sneaked a shot of us :)

At the cathedral entrance

A gentle kiss

Walking on the streets of beautiful Edinburgh city. I love this shot a lot! Very candid, real, yet dream-like at the same time.

Lovers’ embrace. I really love this one, from the colors to the emotions captured. Oh, it was the Edinburgh Festival Fringe when we were in town, which is the largest arts festival in the world. That’s why there were so many people in the background! I love that because it adds to the vibrancy of the photo!

Shopping for a ring. (Or pretending to be. ;) We passed by this array of small shops and Joanna immediately saw a photo-moment right here. She’s awesome!!)

Chilling at a cafe

Kiss :)

Joking around, haha! I initially didn’t want to include this shot in our album as it looked so silly, but Ken said we should because it’s so natural and funny! Upon further thought, I think he’s right! I love the candidness of this photo; it reflects the frequent laughter and fun we have in our relationship.

Sweet and quiet moment in the garden. This was taken at Princes Street Gardens.

In the interior of Tantallon Castle (or what’s left of it). Tantallon Castle is a semi-ruined mid-14th-century fortress and it’s one of the castles in the care of Historic Scotland today.

While we may look really comfy and eased in the photos above, the whole photoshoot process was a mad rush in cold weather! About 10-14 degrees in summer wear (as you see in the photos) which was too cold for me. Ken had it better since he was in jeans/pants with long-sleeved tops, but he felt the chills too!

Since we engaged Joanna/Jan for only four hours over two days, we only had about 30 seconds to pose, look right, and shoot for each scene and had to rush quickly to the next spot after that. It was tricky, bearing the cold weather and hustling from one spot to the next. It was all good fun though. I was a little disappointed when we wrapped up after the two days!

At the top of Tantallon Castle

What a dramatic shot; we love this one!! This was taken atop the castle. Believe it or not, it was the wind blowing my hair! It was unbelievably windy (and cold) when we were there (August). Half the time I felt like my earrings were going to fly off! (Thankfully they didn’t.) But it was so fun despite the weather challenges!

A lazy day on the fields. :) Both of us love this photo because it reflects the sweet, relaxed, and mutual love in our relationship!

“Oh hello, my prince.”

At the top of the world. This is one of our favorite shots! That’s Tantallon Castle in the background amidst the wheat fields; it looks like it could have been ripped from an old European painting! We actually chanced by this spot by accident; Jan meant to drive us to a nearby beach to shoot us and the castle from afar but this spot proved to be so much better. We love it! :D

We really love this one too! This shot reminded me of The Notebook poster (though we were being ourselves and not trying to pose or mimic anyone/anything).

Easily our favorite in the Edinburgh series! This shot is gorgeous! The scenery, the pose, the look, and everything combined feels like it came right out of a movie set.

Oh, Ken actually went to buy the white-roses bouquet at the last minute (spending an hour to commute back and forth) because I felt that it would be nice to have a bouquet for our shoot. And it did! The roses topped off our shoot perfectly, though it would still have been great without them. Thank you GG. ♥ :)

Beautiful sunset at Cramond Beach. Magnificent location, moment, and shot! If it’s even possible, the sunset actually looked more beautiful in person than in the photo!

The proposal

At the top of the cliff; at the top of the world

Ken keeping me warm :)

Hand in hand at the beach. I really like this one as it feels very sweet and innocent. ♥

Under the beautiful (almost full) moon. I thought this picture is so funny and cute at the same time because of how Joanna and Jan digitally magnified the moon to the point where it’s so big, akin to anime moons, haha! The actual scene was actually a LOT darker than in the picture too by the way: Joanna and Jan lightened it by quite a bit in their post-edits.

Final photo: Watching the sunset together — today, tomorrow, and every day, for the rest of our lives

(All clothes and accessories from ourselves. Photography partially sponsored by Orange Lemur. Check out more of their portfolio and photography services at OrangeLemur.com!)

My Thoughts Post-Shoot

Overall, our Edinburgh photos are different from our Glasgow shots in that they have a touch of drama and boldness, while our Glasgow ones bring out a more casual and down-to-earth quality of our relationship. These are probably reflective of the photographers’ personal styles too.

Well, we love them both. :D The pictures shared in part one and this part are our top favorites.

All in all, we feel both shoots captured the essence of what we want: authentic, candid shots which reflect our love, camaraderie, and the true nature of our relationship. The desire for authentic and artful photography is the precise reason we engaged Neil and Orange Lemur for our photoshoots. So we’re really happy that the end output turned out to be exactly what we were looking for! :D

We are also happy we shot with two different photographer teams because we got such a great variety in locations, mood, and styles. We definitely got the best of both worlds engaging Neil and Orange Lemur who have very distinct photography directions.

6 Tips To Achieve Your Best Engagement/Bridal Shoot!

If you are doing an engagement or bridal shoot soon, I have six tips to share:

1. Research the photographers first by checking out their portfolios. Different photographers have different styles, and the best way to tell what their styles are and whether they match what you’re looking for is by seeing their body of work: not by hearing what they say. A picture tells a thousand words and that’s especially true here.

   Many Singapore / Asian wedding photography services I looked up (prior to engaging Neil and Joanna/Jan) had very cheesy and posy portfolios, which weren’t what Ken and I were looking for. It turned out that the Scottish / European photography style is more in line with our preferences, so it all worked out well in the end.

2. Look up reference photos as you brief your photographer(s). I scoured different photographers’ portfolios and the internet for reference poses and locations of what I wanted for our shoot. This helped me to directly convey to my photographers what I was looking for. Again, a picture tells a thousand words, especially when you’re working with photographers!!!
3. Practice taking photos together with your partner before your shoot. If your shoot is anything like ours, you won’t have time to think nor check the output for each scene: you’re going to only have one to two minutes top to pose/look good/get a good shot for each scene, after which you’ll be zipping from one place to another (high heels and all if you’re female).

   So, practice taking photos together as a couple first (if you don’t normally do that) and think about the poses you want to do: especially if you’re planning just one pre-wedding shoot! After our shoot with Neil in Glasgow, Ken and I immediately thought of poses we could have done but didn’t, after which we got them down in our Edinburgh shoot.

   Can I stress that couple camaraderie is very important too in photo taking? I assume you would already have that or you wouldn’t be marrying each other! ;)

4. Bring a pair of flats (for ladies) to easily move from one place to another. Otherwise you may get tired and sweaty from moving around in heels, which will surely show through in the photos!
5. Do quick checks before each scene to ensure everything is in place. From jumbled earrings, to misaligned bangles, to rings getting out of place, to creases in clothes, to flyaway hairs, to makeup wearing off, anything is possible. Makeup can be fixed and so can hair, but the rest, not that much. There was one beautiful closeup shot of our ring which we couldn’t use because the ring was very misaligned; even the ring shot you see in our Glasgow shoot was salvaged after some reconstruction work by me. Make things easier for yourself by checking that everything is in place first!
6. Be camera aware. My experience with video production (for my YouTube channel) and photo taking helped in that it made me more camera aware: I had a general idea of how to pose to get the best visibility and also to get the right look for the photo. I also helped to pose Ken as much as possible to achieve the same. These helped in that it gave us quite a wide selection of shots to choose from in the end.

   While #3 is about building couple camaraderie in front of a camera, this tip is to about building your own camera awareness. Have someone take photos of yourself so you know how you look on photos in different angles/poses/expressions. Find your best angles/poses for your shoot and learn to convey the right expression for the right look in the shoot.

   At the end of the day, a good photographer should makeup for gaps in #3, #5, and #6, but in case your photographer can’t fill these gaps (they may have their hands full with other things), be prepared! This is a once-in-a-lifetime shoot, so I want you to get the best out of it!

Update May 2014: We are now married! :D Details and photos here: My Wedding Day ♥

This is part 2 of my 2-part series sharing my engagement photos with Ken (Aug 2013). For more about our story, read: How I Found My Soulmate (series) and The Day of My Proposal.

• Part 1: My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Glasgow (Kelvingrove Park, West End)
• Part 2: My Engagement Shoot in Scotland, Edinburgh (Tantallon Castle, Cramond Beach, Edinburgh City)