This spring I teamed up with my good friend Elizabeth at Embr Films to give away a free session in the Denver area for Pride Month. We’ve both been wanting to shoot more in the city since we’re always driving up to the mountains, and were feeling inspired to try something more focused on storytelling and activities over just taking photos with an epic landscape in the background. After posting the giveaway on Instagram and asking folks to share their perfect date with a partner, a random number generator pulled out Tiadora and Brooke as the winners.
We started planning the perfect date in their Capitol Hill neighborhood, from vinyl shopping at Wax Trax to walking their dogs in a local park — but soon Brooke messaged us on the side and told us she had bought a ring and was planning to propose to Tia. After some reactions heavy on the excitement and exclamation points, we came up with a new plan to keep it all a surprise.
While Brooke had scouted out the perfect place to pop the question in Cheesman Park, we had failed to account for the Pride events happening in Denver that weekend. The pavilion was occupied by the For the Culture Cookout, a Juneteenth celebration, and we got a fabulous soundtrack of drag queens emceeing a kiki ball as our backdrop for the evening. We quickly pivoted to a quiet corner of the park, and soon enough the happy couple was engaged! After playing cards in the park we headed to Urban Cowboy, where Brooke had booked them a room for the night, and listened to the records they’d bought earlier in the day.
This session was truly so much fun, from playing around with new-to-me locations and shooting a lot more 35mm film than normal, to helping plan and pull off the perfect proposal. What a treat!
