Joshua Tree Proposal and Astrophotography

Our soon-to-be groom decided for a Joshua Tree proposal to a soon-to-be bride without her having any clue at all! He also planned an engagement photography session and an astrophotography session with the stars at night. They did a Joshua Tree national park trip and had it planned to enter the park closer to sunset (which is better for photos) and they stopped at a “random” pullout along the road. I was camped in position to capture them without being spotted, and here is a pic from inside my car behind tinted windows as they walked past:

Joshua Tree Proposal

He walked her over to our mark (a Joshua Tree that had broken in half and super easy to spot) and got down on one knee for the proposal.

She said yes!!!! And if she didn’t this blog article would be awkwardly short…

After the Joshua Tree proposal and having some time to let it all soak in, we eased into an engagement photography session, but this was a newly engaged couple!

They both are fans of movies like Thelma and Louise, so we had to get a photo with the open desert road in Joshua Tree.

And she loves to jump on him (it’s a cute thing they do), so it looked adorable having them do that with this background.

Easing into the Engagement Photos

After that we wandered over to some areas that have rocks and almost a cave-like setting.

Joshua Tree Sunset

The sun was starting to set in the background and that creates beautiful photos for both natural light and strobed.

I love this natural light photo of our newly engaged couple with the sunset.

And as the clouds turned colors with lovely pinks and purple hues, we got some strobed engagement photos to get the whole picture.

Astrophotography in Joshua Tree

After taking a break to let the sun go down and the stars come out, we did some wide-field astrophotography with our engaged couple. I know that the stars were always there, but that’s why we wait for the sun (and moon) to minimize light pollution. In this photo, we can see the light pollution from Palm Springs and the nearby desert cities, along with a spattering of sparse clouds. Oh yeah, all of these are single exposures (no photoshop, no compositing, and definitely no AI).

But when we flip in the other direction the stars were magnificent. There was no Milky Way core this time of the year at the beginning of the night, but the stars still were beautiful and mind-boggling.

Here’s an astrophotography engagement photo that shows the air traffic traveling over the desert skies.

Here is astrophotography shot wide open at a medium focal length, so the stars are intentionally out of focus. This creates awesome light disks, and yes those are real.

Joshua Tree Proposal and Astrophotography

This is a great example of how we do astrophotography and a proposal in Joshua Tree National Park. We captured the proposal candidly without her having a single hint, then eased into an engagement photography session. We finished the session by waiting for the stars and getting astrophotography with our newly engaged couple under a sea of stars.