Napa Wine Train & a Friendly Surprise!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking part in the perfect surprise engagement proposal for my childhood friend, and it was awesome!  Colin, my brother from another mother told me about a month ago he was going to propose to his girlfriend of a year and a half and he wanted me to photograph it.  The bait used to keep this a secret from Louisa was great, she had no idea what was coming.    

Louisa used her birthday gift she received  a while back of tickets to travel on the famous Napa Valley Wine Train.  The very next day after their wine train experience would mark the start of my birthday party weekend at a lake house near by, and Louisa thought she was just beginning her weekend a day early (insert maniacal laughter here). 

The proposal was set to happen minutes before the second stop at Charles Krug winery where I was waiting to capture the happy couple, and as you can see Louisa had no idea she would be looking into my lens when she stepped off the train.

What made this engagement shoot unique compared to my usual shoots, other than it being for one of my best friends, is that we stayed with the tour while I snapped away, just how they wanted it.  We lagged behind the crowd and with just a dozen or so photos at four locations we made all the pictures seen here.

I wanted to make at least one portrait where I use off camera lighting, it's kinda my thing, so I had a light stand ready to go at the end of the tour and I snapped off a quick eight or so photos in the barrel room.  I congratulated my my friends and they hopped back on the train and headed to the next winery.  I headed home to retouch their photos so we could view them later tonight at my birthday party/engagement celebration in wine country!  

Congrats Colin and Louisa, love you guys!