We had a real treat when Dusty and Jake came and spent the evening with us to get their engagement photos taken. Dusty is one of my oldest friends, but as is the case with old friends, we don't see each other nearly as often as we should. Luckily, we have one of those friendships where we can always pick up right where we left off. I am so happy that these two have found each other... you can tell how much joy they have when they are together.

You'll see a few Polaroid's in this post. We brought along our Polaroid camera to take a few pictures. Love these, too!

Pure happiness!

This is my favorite picture we've taken in a looooooooong time. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I am so over-the-moon happy to see one of my best friends with the kind of love that she deserves.

A little later in the evening, we got to bring in the coolest kid ever, Truitt, to take some pictures with his parents!

What a little toot.

At the end of the shoot, Truitt wanted to take a picture of Dusty and Jake. He's a pretty good photographer, don't you think? That's his picture on the right.

Dusty and Jake (and Truitt too) - we are so excited to continue on this journey with you! We can't wait for your wedding later this year!

We've added another film camera to the family, in the form of a Polaroid Land Camera 420. We've been wanting a Polaroid camera for a while now. I (Cat) am the 'gear researcher' of the two of us, and I knew that we wanted a Polaroid Land Camera, but there were several models made. All of them are pretty similar, and since these cameras aren't being made anymore, it came down to finding the right used camera for us.

This particular model was manufactured between 1971 and 1976, so this camera is over 30 years old. So awesome! In that time frame, I wasn't the least bit surprised when my dad saw us with it the other day and said he used to have one like it. The good thing is that it was in almost mint condition, which was important to us. Also, obviously, we wanted the camera to be in tested, working condition, which was harder than you think. So many of these cameras end up on people's mantles, so there's a lot of them on eBay that aren't tested or working.

The camera we got also has had some battery modifications where it can accept modern AAA batteries as opposed to old Polaroid batteries. Polaroid doesn't make the film for these cameras anymore, but luckily, Fuji makes a modern film that works. And so begins our love affair with the Polaroid!

As you can imagine, most of our pictures are of Wilma and Hudson.

When you take a picture, you pull the picture out of the camera and it looks like this. Based on the temperature at your location and the type of film, you have to wait anywhere from 15 seconds to 3 minutes before you can peel the picture off. We have found that if you peel the picture off a little earlier, you can end up with a slightly warmer image. On the opposite end though, if you let it go too long, your picture will definitely look a little blue.

Sometimes though we forget to change the dial for the film speed and end up with a picture like this....

But eventually we figure it out.

We have a huge stack of pictures and we're also bringing our Polaroid around with us on shoots, so we will keep sharing!

Last month we got to hang out with Kelly and Derek and shoot their engagement photos. These two are very much in love and so much fun to be around. On top of that, they really went the extra mile to put lots of thought into bringing unique and meaningful things along to include in their photos. I love that!

This is one good looking couple! :)

Kelly and Derek brought along some things to make this really personal to them. They are big fans of Nicolas Sparks books, they like to relax and just spend time together, and Derek brings out his guitar and serenades his lovely wife to be. I felt like we were out on a little date!

Kelly and Derek, you are so much fun! We can't wait for your wedding this summer!

For this shoot we shot both digital and film.

Contax 645 // Kodak Portra 400 // Processed by Indie Film Lab