When Hope first contacted me about a commission for this portrait, my first thought was that it wasn’t our typical senior portrait client! But boy were we intrigued. It was an elaborate surprise for her boyfriend’s Christmas present and she wanted to know how we would accomplish this homage to his favorite movie, “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” She was able to obtain all of the permissions from the Gaylord Texan to use their ice rink at dawn and she lured Greg to Grapevine from Austin for the photo shoot under some mysterious pretense, all part of the surprise!

We arrived with our ladder and gear well before the shoot and with a little help from Hope’s son, Nathan,  everyone was present before sunrise and the ice was beautiful. She had been collecting all of the clothing piece by piece for quite some time and began taking a scarf, mitten, boot, jacket out of a bag and handing it to him one after the other. All the while she asked him if he had figured out the surprise yet. “No, not yet,” and then he lay down on the ice as instructed. When the smile appeared on his face we knew he had figured it out. He laughed and said, ‘you know it’s a break up movie!’  I’m glad we were able to witness and capture their sense of humor as well as the love they have for one another.

When we decided to accept this portrait commission, we knew it would be a challenging but fun assignment. But what we discovered was that we would be a part of a beautiful expression of love and generosity that warmed our hearts and our holiday season. What a blessing for us that we continually meet the best people as we go about our day to day.

If you would like to schedule a special photo session just for fun, let us know! We love creative projects like this one!