Egyptian engagement photos at sunset with camel

Naomi and I met doing research in a lab at Arizona State University. We both have a love for scienc and learning, and have a thirst for life. Our relationship has always been special and filled with adventure. I remember Naomi and I talking in front of the school library a few months after we met, and first on both of our bucket lists after graduation was to travel the world. Many people have this goal but few actually accomplish it. One of the many things that make Naomi and I perfect for each other is that we hold each other accountable to the things we want, we make sure that we find ways to accomplish our goals together, as often times our goals are the same.

It wasn’t long after graduation that we traveled to Italy and Costa Rica. The following year we saw the Berlin Wall, hiked the Black Forrest, and saw most of Germany. A few months after that, we found ourselves cruising down the Nile River in Egypt, taking pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and waiting for our plane to stop moving in the wind as it almost blew over in Iceland!

I proposed to Naomi on September 2, 2017. Our engagement was elaborate and beautiful, and filled with the people that we love the most. When the conversation of engagement photos came about, I came up with a unique plan. We had just gotten back from our trip to Egypt, where my father and his family are from. We rode camels through the Great Pyramids, walked through the bazaars, and visited many of the memorial sites of the current revolution.

We explored the museums of antiquities and the many other beautiful wonders Egypt has to offer. Because of how unique this trip was when compared to Europe and South America, I thought it would be nice to not only bring a part of Egypt into the photos, but it would also bring a part of my heritage and nationality as well. I ended up telling Naomi I wanted to do a photoshoot in the desert with a real camel to emulate our trip.

We wanted to recreate the feel of Egypt so we picked the Imperial Sand Dunes in California. It was quite the hassle to get all of the permits and insurance for a live exotic animal photo shoot, but it was well worth it! With Carla and Michael, our wonderful photographers, we did a quick turn around trip to the sand dunes and captured the most amazing engagement photos any of us had ever seen.

To create the mood for the pictures, we wanted it to seem as if we had just left an extravagant gala, and somehow got lost in the desert, met a camel, and decided that taking her along for our adventure was just what we needed for an end cap. The relationship that Naomi and I have is in many ways unordinary. We like to think outside the box, we go against the grain, and we try to make everything we do an adventure. A love like ours is one in a million, so our photos needed to resemble that. We only get one shot at life and we want to make sure that we go big and have a lot of fun doing it! —Mona, one half of the couple