Beka & Jason (and Owls & Wolves) Oh My! - Our Dream Photos by James DeCamp Photography

Engagement session with Beka Hanigan and Jason Huddleston photographed Sunday, September 8, 2019 at Darby House in Galloway, Ohio.

This engagement session was a little different than most Beka was really thinking outside of the box and wanted something ‘Magical like Disney’s ‘Beauty & the Beast’ theme” – Beka wanted wolves in the photos – so she hired the IronWood Wolves to participate in the shoot. Jason wanted owls, so he brought in the Ohio School of Falconry to provide a Eurasian Eagle Owl for the shoot.

First we needed an out of the way area that had little to no pedestrian traffic so the animals wouldn’t get spooked. Jamie Rapavy from The Darby House in Galloway was awesome and let us use a small niche of their property while they where hosting a wedding.

The other problem with both of these additions to the normal engagement session is that the wolves couldn’t be around the owl – they would be thinking about lunch :-). and the owl couldn’t be around the wolves – it would spook them too much.

The solution was to double shoot everything and then do some Photoshop magic in post production.

I arrived early on the day of the shoot at the Darby House and scouted out four separate areas. I had photographed a number of weddings there over the years and knew pretty much where to do things, but it had been about 10 months since I was last there and I wanted to make sure the woods looked the same as I had remembered it.

We first worked with Joe Dorrian from the Ohio School of Falconry. He and his daughter Lainey were awesome. I had them pose in various ways in each of the four places I had scoped out. Making careful notes of placement of Beka and Jason, my off camera strobe and me so zi could duplicate the same image with the wolves.

We worked with Henson the owl for about an hour going thru the various locations. Getting Henson to look at the camera was at times a challenge as he was constantly looking for dinner in the scrub and any slight movement of the grass or weeds would pique his interest.

On que, Rachel Lauren & Matt Emmelhainz from IronWood Wolves arrived with Lucian and Cana – two beautiful wolves. This was my first time working with them, and they were just big babies – essentially big pet dogs, but a bit on the wild side. Rachel is a model and photographer herself, so she knew what I was trying to get and helped with posing the wolves.

I had hoped that we could take Lucian and Cana off leash, but that wasn’t wise :-). So a little more Photoshop magic to take out the leads and Rachel and Matt who where almost alway in frame was needed for the final product.

Directly below are the images provided to Beka and Jason. You can find a behind the scenes peek at some of the before and after images in a separate blog post HERE.