Lost Dutchman Engagement Photos | Samantha & Tom
Every day I get to stare at the Superstition Mountains and wonder how the heck they’re real.
That’s one thing I really love about living in Phoenix. Our Creator is so, so talented. And I could not be more grateful that my job is to capture love as He created it, in such beautiful settings as this. Wrapping up this engagement session with Samantha and Tom left Joseph and I in such a place of deep gratitude to them and to God. The hour we got to spend photographing this love story was full of laughter and depth and simply standing in awe of the gorgeous, lush desert setting that is Lost Dutchman State Park.
A bit about Samantha and Tom— the two met in the very romantic setting of high school economics class. They fell in love, though they spend much of their relationship as a long distance couple, attending different universities and beginning their careers in different cities. The distance finally ended, however, in Tucson, where Samantha is earning her PhD (how accomplished are literally all the couples we get to work with 🤯). And so came their inquiry for their engagement photos:
We would love to do our engagement photos in Arizona, as this is the place that the two of us finally got to share after years of long distance. We were hoping to incorporate a lot of Arizona landscapes, and the beautiful geology in the region. We love to hike, and my undergraduate degree was in geology, so we usually come out of a hike with our bags full of the rocks I've collected. We wanted to aim for April because it’s when the wildflowers bloom in Arizona. Wildflowers are a big theme for our wedding, and we were hoping to be able to capture that in our engagement photos!
After hiking the Treasure Loop Trail at Lost Dutchman ourselves for the first time in January, we thought this would be the perfect place to encapsulate everything Samantha and Tom were hoping to incorporate in their engagement photos. The trail is lined with lush desert plants, saguaro and cholla cactus, and, after a cold and rainy winter, beautiful yellow wildflowers everywhere. And that is just the foreground. Sprouting almost spontaneously out of all of this lush desert floor are the towering cliffs of the Superstition Mountains, the most quintessentially Arizona landform I can imagine (outside the Grand Canyon, of course!). Geology is such a focal point of this location.
We decided sunset at Lost Dutchman would be perfect for Samantha and Tom’s hope of light-hearted, fun, unique to them engagement photos. We were treated to a gorgeous, golden desert sunset, and spent the hour we had together roaming the Treasure Loop and capturing the heart of Samantha and Tom’s almost decade of love in this beautiful place, almost as to freeze this moment, and their life together in Arizona, in time.
We hope you enjoy Samantha and Tom’s Lost Dutchman engagement photos as much as we do—
Hi pals! We’re Katie & Joseph, Arizona elopement photographers.
We’re a husband and wife team, and we specialize in capturing traditional weddings and intimate elopements! We are big fans of documenting wedding days in an unposed, raw, genuine, and honest way that allows our couples to maximize their experience on their day while also receiving a gallery full of stunning images that communicate how it felt to be there.
Though we’re based in Phoenix, we’ll travel anywhere for a good love story (and adventure!). We invite you to follow the links below to learn more about us and our services, and to get in contact with us!
