So I wasn’t really surprised when I heard that she was engaged. When we met the couple to talk about photographing their wedding, my suspicion was confirmed: she’s found herself a gem. And so has he, of course. I got that warm glow I get when I meet two people who are utterly comfortable with each other and considerate of each other, who are about to make a permanent deal out of it.

The Jackie and Marcus photo shoot began, as all good days should, with a hearty brunch, then proceeded to The Forest of Nisene Marks State Park. Despite how stuffed to the gills we all were, these two did not hesitate to climb on every redwood stump we pointed to, and they perched on many a mossy log at our request. This shoot involved more hiking than any previous one, more yogic poses, more fording of woodland streams. I was grateful for their willingness to try so many of our ridiculous ideas, and impressed with their ability to make them work.

I found myself falling under the spell of their sweet, easy romance, their obvious chemistry. They looked so right together, and whenever we left them alone for a minute, they flirted with each other. It was pretend flirting that quickly became real, if you can picture that. There was a moment when they were standing on a bridge looking at each other when I thought of a quote from a great work of literature (though I couldn’t remember which work until later): Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

Turns out that line is from Wuthering Heights. Which was a funny association to make, because Jackie and Marcus are not wild children like Catherine and Heathcliff, running around the moors getting drenched, experiencing fateful dog bites and plotting revenge on several generations of people. I believe their plans for the evening involved watching Lost with some friends. But you don’t have to live a life of drama and intrigue between the covers of a book to have a true union of souls.

Having already expressed my profound approval of their relationship to them in an email, and now having written this post, I think I should now hire myself out to anyone who will be giving a toast at their wedding. Loved ones of Jackie and Marcus, just send your rough drafts to me. I’ll have ‘em polished and ready for October.

This question led us to the Felton Covered Bridge, the tallest covered bridge in the country. You can read more about the Felton Covered Bridge by clicking here. That wikipedia entry, in turn, led me to read about other covered bridges, which led me down a pathway of my personal history I’d almost forgotten about. This story has nothing to do with Scott and Lindsey and their engagement shoot, but it will give you something to read while you wait for over 30 photos to load.

The summer I turned seventeen, before I went off to college in the cold northeast, I worked at a bookstore in the mall. That summer, a book called The Bridges of Madison County by Robert J. Waller was all the rage. Here is a description of the book from Library Journal, found at Amazon:

This is the story of four days that change forever the lives of two lonely people. Robert Kincaid is a roving photographer for National Geographic and Francesca Johnson is a housewife whose marriage suffers from a lack of romance. Francesca’s family is out of town when Kincaid arrives on the scene, and the pair are instantly attracted. They soon become lovers, and Kincaid asks Francesca to run away with him, but she refuses. Francesca stays loyal to her family, and memories of Kincaid are all that remain. Contrived, unrealistic dialog detracts from a well-plotted, quick, and pleasant read.

All summer long, people came in asking about that book, wanting to talk about it, sighing when they remembered parts of it, and wondering what we, the bookstore employees, loved most about it. The Bridges of Madison County seemed to have a strong effect on a lot of people, and they were urgent in their enthusiasm for it, their desire to make me understand how they felt. You’ve read it, haven’t you? they’d say. What?! You haven’t? Ohhhh, you are missing out! Read it tonight!!

My bookstore coworkers had read the book, and they all despised it. They despised it with vigor and glee. Everyone added to an ongoing list of what they hated about it, with page numbers and quotations. A copy of The Bridges of Madison County was passed from one employee to another, and each person was welcome to add his or her own annotations in the margins. I can’t remember if I actually participated in this bonding-through-shared-scorn; I was probably too young and naive to rip the text apart with convincing brutality. I do recall being absolutely slayed by the extreme harshness of their criticism when I overheard them talking about it and read their marginal notes. They were so funny! And clever! Would college make me like that, I wondered? Would it teach me to find The Bridges of Madison County intellectually revolting, rather than simply romantic (and extremely cheesy)?

College would, and college did. But the romantic could not be squashed for good, and with every engagement shoot like this one, it grows back a little bit more.

And so we’re back to our covered bridge in Felton. We checked it out in advance, did some testing with lights, but in the end we only had to use the covered bridge for the second half of our shoot. The first half happened at Natural Bridges State Park, and we got our best shots there before the rain began to fall. Scott and Lindsey were great creative collaborators, willing to do the hiking/jumping/making silly faces that often goes into a Red Bat shoot. Plus they were (and still are) truly in love, which is just how we like our couples to be.

Since moving to Santa Cruz, I’ve often noticed people standing on surfboards and paddling around just offshore. That seems like fun, I’d think to myself. How lovely their silhouettes look at sunset as they glide across the water, and just imagine the photos you could get from that perspective.

Little did I know I’d be spending one Valentine’s Day at the Santa Cruz Yacht Harbor, jumping in and out of a car with a camera, as we drove up and down the length of the channel photographing paddleboarders in action for the website of a new SUP shop called Covewater Paddle Surf.

SUP means Standup Paddleboarding, and it’s become quite a popular pastime; this must be true, because The New York Times said so. Scott and Leslie Ruble are so passionate about sharing this sport that they opened the only dedicated Standup Paddleboarding shop on the West Coast north of Santa Barbara, and are busily purveying SUP equipment, accessories, classes and rentals.

It was Scott who drove me to and fro in the harbor that day, stopping at good vantage points to let me out for a minute or so to shoot SUP class groups as they made their way along the channel. Meanwhile, Leslie was in the water, teaching the art of SUP and looking like its best advertisement. I could tell that watching other people out in the water was making Scott want to get on his paddleboard, and the feeling was contagious. I totally want to try it, and of course I know exactly where I can rent equipment and take lessons now (that’s Covewater Paddle Surf, in case you didn’t catch it the first time).

SUP seems to inspire a strong reverence for the ocean (or lake, or even river- people use all of these for paddleboarding). It’s a slightly different spirituality than that of wave surfing, which focuses on the swell and the tides. SUP can make use of water in all states, calm or otherwise, and is devoted to exploring, observing, or just being there, out on the water.

As I picked out my favorite photos from that day to share with you, I was reminded of this poem by Philip Larkin, called Water:

If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.

And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.

The only person who got a “furious devout drench” that day was Jeffrey Kongslie, who was a great sport about it, and who really deserves his own category on this blog. In fact, I’m going to give him one right now.

Enjoy the photos, and don’t forget to try Standup Paddleboarding!

love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is more mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

I shot this event alone, as Patrick was working late hours preparing for our appearance at the rapidly approaching Santa Cruz Bridal Expo. Usually at an event like this, one of us will use a flash and the other one will shoot with available light only. As the sole photographer, I came prepared to switch back and forth between those two modes of shooting. But when I saw how creative the venue lighting was, and how successfully the right mood had been conjured by the designers, I couldn’t bear to ruin it with bright flashes. I used available light only for most of the night, which meant shooting at maximum ISO and letting the shutter drag for the wide-angle shots.

Since that night, I’ve learned a few new techniques that will allow me to use a flash without destroying the ambiance of a room. I’m still working on those techniques. I have a very strong natural inclination towards sticking with available light because I love the sense of reality it lends to a photograph. But there were plenty of things I couldn’t get good photos of with the light that was there, such as the delicious food offered by various local gourmet vendors. (Of which I only sampled a tiny bit, because of the danger of leaving greasy fingerprints on my lens. However, I couldn’t turn down the dessert that involved bacon tucked into strawberries.)

The award ceremony itself was easier to shoot because the winners were on stage, under spotlights. The winners (click their names to view their sites): Marina Sousa, Reyna Ruiz, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, and Danny Keith. If you want to read more about who they are and why they won, this Good Times article has great profiles and photos of the four winners. The ceremony featured video profiles of the winners created by SoWat TV, and you can view those videos in this Santa Cruz NEXT blog post.

A band called Persephone’s Bees took over after the ceremony, and they rocked. I had to leave during the break between their sets, to go home and get some sleep before the next few days of Bridal Expo prep. But what I saw and heard of Persephone’s Bees was impressive and the party seemed to be just getting started when I walked out the door.

A belated congratulations to everyone who was a part of creating this event!

On a side note, no party is really ever complete without Jeffrey Kongslie, which is why he appears at least three times in the photos below.