Colorado Proposal Photographer - Dillon Ice Castles - (25 of 88).jpg

Shooting proposals is fun. There are so many elements that go into them that it really challenges the skills as well as puts your talent to the test. I have shot proposals that were in pouring rain, proposals where the guy arrived by sail boat to a dock and leapt out, proposals at night, and during broad daylight. But this one was probably the most challenging by far. There were alot of elements that were out of my control taht I had to plan around

Changing light
Lots of people
Small space
Timing

The Ice castles in Dillon are an amazing place to shoot. I knew that we were not going to have much light except for a small bit of ambient light and some light from within the Castle itself. Shooting here you cannot block off anyone, so I had to be able to shoot around people. Luckily when you tell people that someone is about to propose in a spot, people are more than willing to move. The spot that I had picked out was, for the 10 minutes that I observed it, not all that busy. But literally the minute before they were about to come through, everyone seemed to pile up in that one location. But as I mentioned before they were more than willing to move once I told them I was shooting a proposal in that spot.

For those of you that are photographers out there. The proposal part of the shoot was shot at ISO 1000, f2 and 1/200. I was using my Nikon D750 with both the Sigma Art 24mm and the 35mm. I shot a majority of the shoot underexposed so that I would maintain the detail of the Ice Castle and recover the shadows in post. Below is a before and after.

She Said Yes!

After she said yes (thankfully I have never shot a proposal where she said no) we found a few locations around the castle to shoot in and get some seriously rad portraits.

After the Ice Castles JC had a special dinner planned at Ember in Breckenridge. The Chef had prepared a special menu for them and One of my favorite florists in Denver, Flora by Nora did the flower arrangements.

(I previously wrote a blog where I went down and did a promo video for Nora, Check it here)