A Summer Engagement Photoshoot Featuring Highland Cows - Alton Water, Suffolk.

5 Aug

Engagament photoshoot at Alton Water in Ipswich, Suffolk with a highland cow in the background inbetween the couple

I had the pleasure of photographing Jodie & Ian for a mid-summer engagement photoshoot at Alton Water in Ipswich, Suffolk. These two lovely beings are getting married in Norfolk next year and wanted some photos to use for some games they have planned with their wedding guests. The bride-to-be (Jodie) called me to tell me about their plans and realised they actually don’t have any photos of the two of them; slight problem! So we started chatting about a pre-wedding photoshoot and decided that Alton Water was a nice half-way point for us to meet and take some lovely photos.

We met at around 5pm (around 3 hours before sunset in August) and started by having a good look around the entrance of Alton Water. We chose this time of day so that the sun wouldn’t be too harsh, but also so that the area wasn’t too busy with people in the background ruining photos. We knew roughly where the highland cows were (our main goal) but we also wanted to find some other picturesque locations so that we had a nice variety of photos from the session. We almost immediately found a lovely trail that I sent the couple up and down a few times with various prompts and ideas.

One of the the couples’ requests was to have some photos by the water, but I was also under strict instructions to avoid sand. We found a lovely quiet spot around 10 minutes walk from the main entrance of Alton Water that had a wide open grassy area leading directly to the water’s edge.

The main reason we chose Alton Water for this pre-wedding photoshoot was because of the highland cows. All three of us were so excited when we came across a huge field of very friendly highland cows and the cows seemed equally pleased to see us (probably). This was my favourite part of our engagement shoot, and I think it’s safe to say that if you are going to have an enagagement photoshoot, it’s always going to be better with highland cows!

I knew Alton Water would have the lake aspect we were looking for, and of course, the highland cows, but we were very pleasantly surprised when we discovered this absolute gem of what I call a “nature corridor”: A long forest tunnel with a soft sprinkle of light coming through the trees made for some spectacular couples portraits. I LOVE the colours here, but I also really like the contrast that the black and white option provides for this. Let me know which you prefer!