sarah tew photography

On April 10th at approximately 12:45pm I had the amazing pleasure of shooting a real live proposal of marriage!  Imran was the best man at one of my favorite weddings of 2010– he got in touch with me a month or so ago to find out if I might be able to stealthily shoot him proposing to his girlfriend in the park!  I was all, “Hello, WINNING!” (and no, i didn’t actually say that!).  We arranged to meet briefly at the park he wanted to propose in (Madison Square Park) and make a little gameplan– where for them to go so I could shoot them well with my longest non-obvious lens (the 70-200 is white and looks like a giant sports lens to most people, kind of eyecatching so I went with my 135 f2 L).  We planned hand signals to let eachother know when we were ready and in position…  Needless to say when the day came I got there about half an hour early just to scope it out.  As I walked up to the park down Madison it became clear there was going to be a major festival taking place in the park– the Persian Parade was about to come down Madison with festivities and food happening right where we had planned to be.  I texted Imran that this might be trickier than we thought… then I walked in and saw that it was not crowded– not yet anyway, and the circle around the fountain we had decided was our ideal spot was pretty open actually.  Texted him again that all was well and waited.  And waited.  And tried to look nonchalant.  The anticipation was crazy.  I might as well have been the one who was proposing– my heart was beating so fast when they finally arrived and sat down… I had been the wedding photographer at a wedding she’d been to with him not even a year ago so I was a little nervous she might recognize me but it became clear he was keeping her engaged and she wasn’t really looking my way despite the fact that there was ANOTHER COUPLE getting an engagement session done about 20 feet to my left…  this might have been a perfect distraction.  Imran bent down to tie his shoes (my signal he was about to go for it) and luckily the sounds of the parade music were growing louder so i stood up with my camera and pretended I was there waiting to shoot the festival stuff while keeping him in my peripheral vision.  The stealth element was SO FUN.  The proposal went off without a hitch and she didn’t notice me shooting like crazy and walking over to get a different angle until it was all over– then this other couple on a bench nearby congratulated them and said they had just got engaged not long ago themselves… it was really sweet.  I’m so thrilled to have be a part of this and to capture the special moments between them as this proposal unfolded.  I love my job. What a lovely sweet couple. Congratulations!