It’s that time of year again! Time for scouring the markets for great “back-to-school” deals on supplies and clothes. Time for savoring the last remaining days of summer fun (at least where we live). And time for Seniors to get their fabulous senior portraits made for their final year of High School!  And I am so fortunate to get to photograph the most gorgeous seniors ever! Mallory came to me from the blazing heat of Arizona to the more hospitable clime of San Diego. We chose my favorite beach to shoot at down there – Windansea beach, which is such a beautiful setting.  And Mallory was such a natural in front of the camera, that it was a piece of cake to get more beautiful portraits than I can possibly show in a sneak peek – choosing was the hardest part! Enjoy your Sneak Peek Mallory!

So this is my nephew Owen on his 4th birthday.  I usually bring my camera to friend and family birthday parties and snap plenty of shots while I am there.  But usually the pictures get downloaded and sit on one of my hard drives, forgotten about for years, along with most of my other personal shots. My intentions are good – I mean to edit and give the pics to their respective owners. But in reality, paying client’s pictures always take precedent over my own personal images and the fun pics I take for family and friends.  But in this case, I really OWE my AWESOME sister Brittany.  Because she agreed to take ALL of my 3 kids this week – in addition to her own 4 – so that I can finally get caught up (or at least headed that way) on work!  Our kids are best of friends and she has planned so many fun things for them to do this week.  But I also know that she has already had at least one sleepless night (maybe two), so I thought I could say “Thank You” by fishing out and editing these pics from Owen’s birthday party.  Brittany always does such a great job at planning parties – I think she should go into business!  This party was a pirate themed party – with a pirate ship pinata, a real treasure hunt, golden coins and pirate patches.  Very very fun!  And Owen was such a ham!  Owen has  a mind of his own, and usually his ideas do not include having a camera pointed in his direction. But on this day he was very obliging about looking in my general direction – even with the camera in hand!  Enjoy the pics Britt & Tyson – I will bring a disc down when I come pick up the kids!

I know, I know… how can I pick any one of my clients to be the cutest family?  Especially when I have so many gorgeous families?!?  Well, when it is my own family (sort of), I just have to!  Meet my sister Brittany and her lovely family of 6.  Doesn’t she look hot?  Well, she earned it. She works out no less than 2 hours a day, something I could not even imagine finding the time for.  And her equally hot husband is also very nice and a great doctor. And they have 4 gorgeous children, who have a reputation for terrorizing photographers (even famous ones!).  I mean, what do you expect with 3 energetic little boys and a princess?  But in spite of their antics, we actually had our most successful family shoot ever.  As in, there was more than one image in which all 6 of them were looking at the camera. There were a good share of bloopers as well, but how could you not get some great shots with a family this cute?  So with no further adieu, here is your long awaited blog post Britt. Enjoy.

I know you are all just dying to meet the brainchild behind the magic of my recently posted butterfly session.  You may not realize how much work goes into planning a “picture perfect” photo shoot – especially one that tells a story, has a theme running through it, or is even just has that personal touch to convey more than just a likeness of a person or a family… With just a little bit of extra effort and attention to details, your portraits can be not just likenesses of the people (or pets) you love, but true works of Fine Art.

There are decisions to make (how can we best express who we really are, or who my child really is?  do we want to commemorate a special event that we want to remember?), locations to find, often there are arrangements that must be made with the locations, a suitable wardrobe to choose, accessories to consider, and oftentimes props to choose and purchase to make things really personal.  It can sometimes be very overwhelming.  Wouldn’t it be great to have an expert put together your entire session for you?  Someone who knows a lot of great locations, who know where to find unique and classy props (often at  a discount) , someone with a great sense of style to help you figure out what to wear and what looks good – and mostly someone to bounce off all of your ideas and come up with some pretty creative ideas as well.  If you are looking for just such a person to take all of the headache out of planning your photos session, resulting in a product that is uniquely “you,” I  know just the person.

Renee can help you come up with a great idea for your session and works closely with me to pick the ideal location, wardrobe and “props” to help you tell your story.  She’s also great at finding awesome deals and ways to save!  And to top everything off, she comes to your session with you and makes sure everything runs so smoothly – she brings brushes, keeps surprises for the kids, has makeup for touchup, helps me to get the great shots, etc.  She began a couple of years ago when planning theme sessions for her own adorable twins – with the idea to really tell a story and allow them to explore, grow and experience new things while having their portraits taken (the other bonus is that the girls really look forward to their fun times with “Miss Vanessa” as they always get to do something new and interesting – much better than dreading sitting still in a stuffy studio – although there is a place for that too).  Together we have come up with so many fun ideas that translate into beautiful images that tell the story of their childhood.  And she sends out the most beautiful press-printed cards for each holiday – a treat that friends and family look forward to!  But the thoughts are always coming, and there are only so many photo shoots one can do with their own family in a year (just ask my own kids!)  So she has decided to offer her creative juices and her services to others who would appreciate a no-stress, beautiful session.

For the months of May and June, all Photo Styling services will be discounted – a great opportunity for you to take advantage of the help at a reduced price!

Just to give you an idea of the things she comes up with -

For the butterfly session:

This is Renee, wearing her very handy “Photo Stylist Apron” – and two of her great ideas – the jar with cheesecloth & flowers to hold the first butterflies the girls got to hold, and the basket full of flowers to carry the butterflies to be released.

Well, actually Baby Jack turns two today….so in honor of his birthday I have decided to post the images from his “turning one” shoot a year ago…  Jack is my very very cute nephew, and my sister and I ran down to this golf course near our bro & sister-in-law’s house for a few quick pics at a family function last year.  Very cute location, but we were scared to death by this large goose who apparently had just lost its mate or had babies (I can’t remember which) and it kept trying to swoop in and attack us.  It was afraid of nothing – we had to use my light disc as a shield and run for cover.  So we ended up getting most of our shots by this fence, safely out of the radar of mad mother goose…. Well, better late than never, right?  Happy Happy birthday Jack.  And we’ll be seeing more from his family and cute pics of him from their shoot last weekend.  And hopefully I will finish posting my gorgeous wedding from a couple of weeks ago later today….

Welcome to my *NEW* blog!  Unlike my last “new” blog which was beset with technical and formatting difficulties, I promise to keep this new blog updated and maybe even to get some sneak peaks in here once in a while – before the session is edited!  And because I have so much catching up to do (I am dozens and dozens of posts behind), I will also be updating more regularly – with lots of summer session interspersed with more recent work.  The darling beauty opening up this new blog is my niece, Courtney.  She was long overdue for a portrait update and her mom wanted to do a fashion shoot with all the girl cousins at Balboa Park in San Diego. This was a fabulous place to shoot thanks to lots of bright colors and great architecture.  It had been a while since I have been here.  And Brittany (my sister) put together some great outfits (as she always does) for all the girls to wear.  She is the fashionista of the family. This is her one and only daughter – check out her gorgeous eyes. All of Britt’s kids got the “Anderson” eyes.  I’ll have to add some of my own girls soon!  But this is enough for now… Enjoy!