A Waiting Game: A Summer Engagement Session at Larz Anderson Park with Nina & Zac

The best sessions don't always happen as planned. Sometimes they happen because you're willing to be flexible. With Nina and Zac, that meant waiting through winter, rescheduling around the rain, and trusting that the right evening would come.

Despite getting engaged during the winter, both Nina and Zac always pictured their engagement photos surrounded by warm light instead of snow. When our original session was rained out, we waited a little longer. It wasn't the plan, but it ended up giving them exactly what they had hoped for: a golden summer evening that felt warm in every sense of the word.

Larz Anderson has become one of my favorite places for Boston engagement photography, which is funny because long before I photographed couples here, my family used to take our childhood dog on walks through the park, and even go sledding on the hills in the back. Every visit feels a little nostalgic, just in a different way now.

Most of my sessions here have centered around the gazebo and historic stone structures, but this time we decided to do something different. Instead of staying in the familiar spots, we wandered up into the rolling hills, where the golden grass and warm evening light created exactly the atmosphere Nina and Zac had imagined. Down below, music drifted up from the school, giving us our own little soundtrack for the evening. It felt effortless, warm, and completely unplanned in the best way.

After months of winter and one rainy reschedule, summer had finally arrived.

With two celebratory shots of tequila, nerves disappeared. they laughed through every prompt, trusted every idea, and embraced every suggestion. At one point, I told them I wanted the session to feel like the ending of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, where Katniss and Peeta are finally able to live a quiet life together beneath the tree. Minus the dictatorship, maybe? Somehow, they immediately understood the vision.

While we were walking through the fields, a ladybug landed on Nina. It was a small, completely unplanned moment, but it felt like a little sign of good luck, another reminder that sometimes the best parts of a session are the things you could never plan for.

One of my favorite moments came when I handed them my film camera and asked each of them to photograph the other. They'll always have the photos they took, but they'll also have photos of themselves making those memories. It's a small detail, but one that makes the story feel even more complete.

As the sun dropped lower, we made our way down by the bridges. Nina slipped off her shoes, Zac carried them in one hand, and the concrete scenery gave a more end-of-the-session feel.

This session reminded me that the best photographs rarely come from forcing a plan. They come from trusting the process, staying flexible when the weather has other ideas, and waiting for the right moment.

Sometimes warmth isn't just the golden light or the summer air. Sometimes it's what you find on the other side of a little patience.