Pangburn Photography: Blog

Lera + Nate: Engaged

When Lera first e-mailed me to ask about photography, I knew before I had ever met her in person that I was going to love her. Her and Nate are the kind of people that just make you feel like you've been old friends for years even though you've just met. I totally love that about them. On top of that they have an amazing love story... I'm pretty sure if I tried to explain it I'd just end up muddling up things so instead I'll just post up a quote from the e-amil Lera first sent me asking about photography:

A week ago today I became engaged to the person I love more than anyone in the world, Nate Montminy. A super-short synopsis for a very long story: we met in Okinawa, Japan when we were 12 and 13 and both liked each other very much, but were too young to know what to do about it. When he moved away sophomore year I often thought of him as 'the one that got away' and wondered where he was. We lost touch for six years, until I found him when I was still in college and he was living in Germany. We became close friends and talked on the phone on and off for hours another three years until we finally decided to meet. The moment we did, everything fell into place. It turns out I was the 'one that got away' for him too. After seeing one another again, we couldn't stand to be apart. Three months after seeing one another (again) for the first time, I moved to Arizona where he was living, and we've lived together for two years now, extremely happy and feeling blessed every day that somehow we found another again.

Is that not amazing!? I mean that's a straight quote! I love hearing amazing stories like that!

When it came time for the engagement photos Lera and Nate were literally up for anything. For example...

Me: Wanna drive up to northern Arizona to a tiny little town you've never been to before to do your photos?
L + N: Sure! If you think it will make good photos we're up for it!
Me: YEAH!

Of course that's not an exact record of how it all went down. But close enough lol... So on my suggestion we all headed up to one of my favorite little towns Jerome Arizona. Jerome is such an awesome old mining town, and great for photos. I was super super stoked to get to photograph inside a location I've wanted to for a long time while we were there too. It's this weird little junkyard/petting zoo/ghost town/i have no clue but it's amazing! If you don't believe me just check out some of the images we got!

On our way up to Jerome we stopped off the side of the road for a quick sec to take a couple photos in this gorgeous field...




Where we found this AMAZING bridge... LOVE this photo!!!


After that it was onto Jerome and the cool photo location I was talking about...




There are just tons of these cool old trucks all over the place there...


I was in love with this little doorway... the lighting was amazing!








After we'd been wandering around a while I stumbled into this cool spot... where I literally was having a giddy fit inside I was so excited. Can we talk about the light in this photo!? Totally awesome and 100% natural!


I couldn't decide which photo I liked better... so I just posted both of them lol...


LOVE!!!! How fun is this!?


And then just a couple portraits I did of them that I really loved :)


And if you still want to see more here is a link to their slideshow: LERA + NATE