I have an interesting and ironic story with these Salt River engagement photos. Krista is a meteorologist for an air traffic tower in Virginia. We scheduled their engagement session in monsoon season. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Arizona’s weather, is the period of time in summer (officially June 15th-Sept 15th) where moisture from the Gulf of Mexico gets drawn up into Arizona. It’s a very exciting time for weather nerds and Arizonans because we don’t get a lot of rain or interesting weather. During the afternoon, that moisture creates a lot of pop up thunderstorms which can be severe. Even though I don’t know much about weather, I nerd out during monsoon season by watching the radar and following some local stormchaser buddies, which is how I pretend to know anything about weather. I was into weather when I was in 1st grade and watched the Weather Channel for hours, so that’s probably NOT very normal for a kid, but I was a very odd kid.  I probably still am pretty odd, but eccentric is good, right? Right? Maybe don’t answer that.

Well, conditions were right (or wrong, depending on how you look at it) the day of their engagement session at the Salt River and they were only in town for a short period of time before having to head home. I eagerly and anxiously watched the radar to see how the storms were looking. Not good (but exciting)! We had several severe warned thunderstorms around the area and I was watching their movement closely. I had Krista make the call since she was an actual professional and we went through with the session despite some pretty active weather around. We got out to the Salt River and shot for about 20-30 minutes before lightning got a uncomfortably close. We called it off and rescheduled. When I got home, I found out that in Phoenix there was a landspout (a very weak tornado) and all around us were a ton of strong storms with hail and lots of lightning, so it was probably a good thing we called it off. But HOW AWESOME are the photos especially considering Krista’s profession? Worth it in my book! We got the best of both worlds- dramatic stormy photos and bright, sunny sunset photos.

Wanting some beautiful Salt River engagement photos of your own? I’d be happy to help out with that. I’m an Arizona engagement photographer specializing in natural, genuine engagement photos leaving you & your partner feeling comfortable and yourselves, not awkward and unphotogenic.