Nessa and Torry got engaged in Central Park and chose an upstate winter engagement session at Awosting Falls in Minnewaska State Park Preserve, New York, photographed by Acromatico. The pair, friends since 17, braved 23-degree cold to shoot at the empty waterfall ahead of their April wedding.
Nessa and Torry have been friends since they were 17. He loves Brooklyn, she loves nature, and although both are from the city, they wanted an upstate engagement session after he proposed in Central Park. They chose Awosting Falls, and despite a freezing 23-degree day, they made it look like a warm, crisp fall afternoon. Because the cold kept the crowds away, the couple had the waterfall completely to themselves.
This was an engagement session ahead of their wedding, which is coming up in April. As Acromatico put it, the moody, cold-weather shoot was worth every numb finger, and the studio is already excited to photograph the two of them again for the wedding.
“They made 23 degrees look like a warm, sunny, crisp fall day.”
Good to know
Awosting Falls is a roughly 60-foot waterfall inside Minnewaska State Park Preserve, located on the Shawangunk Ridge in Ulster County, New York, near the hamlet of Kerhonkson and the town of Gardiner. It sits a short, mostly level walk from the Peters Kill / Lower Awosting parking area off Route 44/55, making it one of the most accessible photo spots in the preserve. The drive from New York City runs roughly 90 miles north, which is why it draws city couples like Nessa and Torry who want a nature setting without traveling far.
Minnewaska State Park Preserve charges a per-vehicle entrance fee and keeps daytime hours that shift with the season, so arriving early helps you secure parking and the falls before other visitors. Winter brings genuine cold and ice along the carriage roads and waterfall ledges, as Nessa and Torry's 23-degree shoot proved, so dress in warm layers and plan for shorter daylight. The trade-off is a quieter preserve and the chance, weather permitting, to have the waterfall almost entirely to yourselves.
