Vincent & Adriana's Sunset Engagement Session in Osaka

Vincent and Adriana spent an evening being photographed across Osaka in May, the day after he proposed, chasing the last hour of light through the city while the news was still brand new.

There is a particular kind of light that Osaka holds onto in May: warm, unhurried, the kind that turns glass and water gold before it disappears. Vincent had proposed the night before [CONFIRM: any detail you'd like included about the proposal itself, or keep private], and by the time we met the following evening, Adriana still had that unmistakable look brides get in the first days of an engagement: a little disbelieving, a little luminous, glancing down at her hand every few minutes as if to check it was real.

I didn't want to stage anything that evening. The two of them had already had their moment, the real one, the night before, so my job was simply to follow them through Osaka as the sky changed colour, and let them exist in it. Vincent kept catching Adriana's eye and grinning like he still couldn't quite believe his luck. She kept catching him at it and laughing. That's the whole story, really: two people who had just said yes to each other, wandering a city at golden hour with nowhere they needed to be.

As a Japan based, bilingual photographer whose work has been featured in British Vogue, I get asked often whether a city like Osaka can hold its own against Kyoto's temples or Tokyo's skyline for a session like this. It can, and does. Osaka's light in late spring, its energy, its willingness to just be a backdrop rather than the main event, makes it one of my favourite places to photograph a couple who simply want to be looked at properly for an evening.

Vendor credits‍

• Photography: Sofia Hiramatsu Photography

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If you're dreaming of the same

If you're newly engaged and thinking about where in Japan to tell your story, whether that's a full wedding, an elopement, or simply a session like this one, I'd love to hear from you.