During engagement sessions I often ask my couples to tromp through weeds, climb rock walls, balance on logs over freezing streams- little things that make the session fun and get us beautiful  images. I always preface it with  little safety clauses talk like  “Only go out on that log if you feel TOTALLY safe”  or “If you’re ok with trecking through these weeds, we can get some great images- just watch out for poison oak”   Normally everything goes fine…. Until the day I photographed Brooke + Randall’s engagement session.  About half way through their session we were tromping through  a field  of weeds in Grass Valley (my favorite place to shoot),   when  I accidentally stepped in a wasp nest (who knew that wasps lived in the ground?!?)

Um yeah, that’s NOT a great thing to happen during a photo shoot (or anytime really).  I was the first to be stung, and by the time I realized what was happening, Brooke had wasps on her and had also been stung.  I dropped my camera and we proceeded to  run around screaming like little girls,  taking off clothing while poor Randall tried to calm us down and get  wasps off us.   Luckily, no one was seriously hurt- we made it out with only a few stings each (which hurt like hell for over a week).   It was both the scariest AND funniest engagement session ever. Thankfully, I have the best clients ever, and they were total troopers- we were even able to finish the session once we calmed down.  here’s a peek.

xo Melanie

Near the scene of the attack…. I just love shooting at this location, despite the nasty wasps.