Photo of the Day


Spontaneity by the Pond

July 30, 2018

By Stacey Goldberg

Photo © Henry Tieu

Photographer Henry Tieu had a vision for this couple’s elopement portrait session: to capture the grooms looking directly at the camera, surrounded by the beauty of Washington state’s Gold Creek Pond mountains behind them. Due to some unforeseen acts of nature, that’s not exactly what he got.

“While the couple was fixing their jackets and smiling, two birds starting flying behind them,” Tieu recalls. The photographer had to quickly grab his camera and switch to manual to capture this sudden fly-by, and luckily he did so just in time as the two birds spread their wings directly behind the grooms.

“I had no control over the birds and the looks that the grooms gave each other,” Tieu says. “If someone asked me to recreate something like this, I truly don’t think I could.” This is what made the photo so special for him, he adds, and for the newlyweds. “I am a firm believer that things happen for a reason,” Tieu muses, “and these two birds appeared in our photo for a reason: to celebrate the couple.”

(Captured using a Sony a7R III with a 35mm f/1.4 lens.)

Photo © Henry Tieu

Check out more Photos of the Day, and email submissions to rangefinder@emeraldexpo.com.