Photographing Kelley and Robs engagement was so much fun. I knew how much they love the water, and they let me be creative with it. I asked them to tell you their story to go along with their amazing pictures.
When Robbie and I met, we were fourteen; we actually met the summer before we both made the awkward transition into high school. Although we both had slight crushes on each other in the beginning, this quickly faded as immature high school relationships typically do. We were strictly friends throughout high school and when Robbie moved our senior year, we heard about each other often as our family friends and social groups continued to unite our worlds.
When Robbie served his mission in Detroit, I sent him one letter. Undoubtedly it was his favorite letter received. Not because it said anything important but because it was written on the back of a page ripped out of Surfer Magazine. I guess I knew how hard it must have been for him to be so far away from the ocean that had practically raised us both.
As soon as I returned from my mission in Russia this last October, Robbie flew home from BYU-Hawaii for Thanksgiving break. He made the drive up to Santa Barbara to surf Rincon and casually come pay me a visit. That trip up the coast changed everything for us.
Since our engagement day, Robbie and I have been excitedly waiting to take our engagement pictures with Mark. Mark is so fun to work with mostly because of his great epiphanies he envisions with clients. He’s very good at improvising and building upon what is coming at him through the lens.
One of the most unique features of Mark’s photography is his ability to be in the water with his clients. For both Robbie and I the water is everything. His underwater portraits are what made us fall in love with his work. It is something so unusual that nobody else does and something that we had to have to remember our “young and in love” stage of life.
