Jen and Matt were the couple of the hour when I took their photos at Bethesda a little while back. Jen is a friend of mine and while I know her pretty well, I'd only met Matt once before these photos. You see, Matt works overseas and these two chose to spend a precious hour of Matt's month at home with me, taking some photos.

Because of their limited time together, I really wanted to make something special of this session. After all, a picture can be a huge comfort while in a long distance marriage. As an army wife, I've thought a lot about what I would do when my husband gets deployed, and I know that I would want to get some good photos taken before he left.

This was also a special shoot because of the fresh emotions that come from a happy reunion. It was important to me to get shots that really captured what these two feel for each other. In a way this session was kind of like shooting a wedding. We were just missing all the chaos of an actual wedding.

All of this combined made this session feel pretty important, and one that I truly wanted to get right. We were all nervous at first, but as usual we took a few shots and everybody started to loosen up. We wandered haphazardly around Wormsloe for a while (I'd never been past the main area with the trees and therefore didn't know what was what) and then finished out the shoot at Bethesda. We explored, talked, and tried out whatever poses we could think of (some that worked, some not so much) and most of all, had a really good time doing it. I quite enjoyed working with Matt and Jen and am excited by how the photos turned out. Most importantly, I hope they are too!

If you like what you see here, please check out my website http://www.mikaelajoy.smugmug.com where you can see this full album and more of my work, as well as contact me to book a session of your own.