At a winter elopement in Big Sur, photographer Brandon Scott had about a half hour to take portraits of the couple before they would start losing sun. It had been rainy, Scott observes, so the whole scene was particularly green.

“We were driving along to a different spot I had in mind when we saw these deer munching away on the newly sprung grass,” he explains. “I pulled over super quietly and asked [the couple] if they’d be down to walk among them. They were super, super soft-spoken people, very quiet and calm. The deer grazing sort of embodied the calmness of their personalities, so for some reason in my head, this whole scene just matched them so well.”

Scott wasn’t going to get photos of these two tickling each other or canoodling for the camera. That just wasn’t them, he says. “But they were perfect for something serene like this. I didn’t want to holler out directions and scare the deer, so I had them walk slowly and quietly and told them to count to 20. ‘When you get to 20, turn right and just start walking into the middle of the deer herd.'”

The couple followed his directions and Scott pulled the shutter once they aligned with the slope of the hill behind them. “As they slowly walked into the deer herd, it slowly dispersed and the scene was gone. We had one chance and it all worked out.”

(Shot on a Canon 5D Mark III and 24mm f/1.4L lens at f/1.4, 1/4000 sec. and ISO 400.)

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