Romantic In Home Engagement Photos | Durham, NC | Alex and James — Adam Chapin Photography

From the very get go I knew that getting to shoot with Alex and James was going to be fun. We met up to first talk about their wedding (which is tomorrow!!!) at a local brewery and ended up chatting about music, beer, travel and the art of photography. I very much believe that we all have our own love languages, and I don't mean French or Italian, and these two hit on a few of mine. So when we talked about what we were going to do for their engagement session and we came down to making some romantic in-home engagement photos followed by some Eno River hiking and river play, I knew we'd have an awesome time. And we did.

In-home engagement sessions are pretty amazing. Partly because it allows me to get to know my couples that much better by seeing some of their routines, as we are all most comfortable in our own homes as opposed to some random location. But also because it allows it to be just us; no onlookers, no traffic, no parking issues...just some quality time. So we chatted, shared more than a few laughs, listened to some records, they danced in their dining room, made some breakfast and drank some coffee from a cup with Transformers on it and one with the name Shirley. After which, we headed out to a nook on the Eno River in Durham.

If you don't know by now, I enjoy a good bit of adventure so when we talked about spending some time in nature and taking a little hike, I asked if they would be up for some in-river shots. Alex then told me she had already been thinking that she'd like something with them in water and so we made that happen. I carried out my new-to-me large format film camera (and of course my Nikons) and we made our way out to a nice quiet spot along the Eno. We were all dripping with sweat by the time we got there so we made a couple simple, beautiful portraits and then immediately got our feet wet.

It was awesome!

They needed no direction or cues to do anything, so everything happened so naturally and it was so amazing to just be able to watch and capture the moment as it happened. One minute they were both standing thigh deep in the shallow water and the next James lost his balance and went in and Alex followed suit. It was absolutely one of the most beautiful and romantic engagement sessions I have had the pleasure to photograph.

Now we have hurricane Matthew baring down on us for their wedding day and I asked if they would game to getting some windy, rainy, wet wedding photos after the ceremony and just as I suspected they were both all in. It's definitely not too much to say that I am in love with these two!