Sometimes you meet someone who just carries a natural grace and poise about her that is unmistakable. Such was the case with “K” – she was so natural in front of the camera and such a joy to be around. I loved her fairly modest attire that let her true inner beauty shine through!  She will be heading out to UC Santa Barbara this fall and I am sure she has a very bright future ahead of her! It was my pleasure to spend the afternoon with her and her mother! Congrats on graduating this year and enjoy your sneak peek!

I am submitting this family portrait favorite into the “Rock the Shot” contest this month which has the theme of silhouettes.  I have a lot of favorite silhouette photos, but this has to be my latest fav… I just love the feeling of camaraderie and love this family exudes. This was one of the last shots of the day from this fun and fabulous family session…I saw the setting sun low in the sky and the beautiful colors from the sunset  and had them “play” pass around with their sweet baby one more time…brought my exposure down about a stop and boom! There were a few other fun ones you can see on their original blog post here.  Check out the other fabulous silhouette submissions at www.rocktheshotforum.com by clicking here!

I had the loveliest time photographing this fun family/engagement shoot. What made it all the more fun was that I had just had my own engagement session and was about to get married – so I was in that mode!  Now that my own wedding is done, I had a blast editing the photos for this lovely couple and their two children – one of each!  There is something wonderful about blended families and this was such a seamless blend – they kids seemed as if they’d known each other all of their lives and everyone got along swimmingly!  You would never even know that it was super windy and FREEZING cold! They were down visiting for another wedding and wanted some photos taken at the beach. I guess wedding season is ramping right up!  Enjoy your sneak peek guys – I loved how your images turned out!

This family was all together for the week of Christmas and I was lucky enough to take their portraits the night before I left to go out of town! And what a gorgeous day it was – sunny and blue skies in Laguna Beach – quite the contrast to the cold and snow that greeted me in Utah!  I loved meeting this beautiful family and their loveable pit bull puppy! Enjoy your sneak peak Honey and family!

This session felt jinxed from the beginning. Having had to be rescheduled due to bad weather, we made a second go at it last Thursday!  This sweet family wanted to do photos at Crystal Cove State Park because they live right there in Newport Coast.  But there wasn’t enough time to properly submit for a permit to shoot there and Crystal Cove State Park requires a permit from the CA Film Commission. I told them we could give it a try to get some shots at their own stomping grounds, but there would be a chance we’d be cited or asked to leave. Sure enough, not two candids into our session we were approached and asked for our permit and then made to leave. Bummer. But fortunately for us, Shaw’s Cove is just a hop, skip and a jump down the beach from Crystal Cove and is a beautiful setting for portraits. So, in spite of our unlucky beginnings, we were able to capture some beautiful memories, in a beautiful location on the coast of Laguna Beach. I think the end result was well worth all of the hassles! Enjoy your sneak peek “C” family!

Here’s the same couple from the last post with Shane’s sweet daughter Skylar!  Can’t you just feel the love?

This lovely couple will be getting married next year up North, but wanted some engagement photos down here at Wood’s Cove in Laguna Beach while Sara finishes up her law degree here at Chapman University!  So Shane and Skyler came down for a very fun and warm sunny afternoon by the water.  We kind of morphed this into both an engagement session and a family sessions, since these lives will be intertwined with this sweetest of little girls! You can readily see in my next post that Skyler loves both her dad and her soon to be step-mom!  I love sessions where the love is so apparent!

Can you tell that these folks really love each other… and they love to play… a lot? All of my favorite images from this session were the ones where they were interacting, playing, loving each other and enjoying their visit to the beach…not posing.  Hugs, tickles, ring-around-the-rosies, chasing waves…of course the fun and games all ended once the waves almost swallowed the littlest one up. But everyone thoroughly enjoyed their lovely sunny evening at the beach, as you can clearly see!

The Christmas season is in full swing and I have a record number of last minute (or last few weeks) sessions to get out and edited this time around! Which means blog posts long on photos and short on words!  I loved the fun props brought to this session and this adorable family!  I think we rescheduled this session 3 times for weather, but scored on a beautiful afternoon when it was finally not raining on us! We ended up fitting in a Senior portrait session for Alex as well, and they all turned out beautifully! Enjoy your sneak peek!

I was so excited when my good friend and roommate from BYU came down to visit California with her family!  I knew I had to find time to see them in my busy schedule, and since my kids love to go to the beach, and her family wanted to go, we decided to meet at Diver’s Cove for a fun afternoon in the surf and sun!  Of course I brought my camera along, and although it wasn’t the best time of day for pictures and no one had coordinated outfits, we took a few posed family groupings and lots of fun candids.  Here are the results – and they bring back warm memories from a fun time together earlier this year. Enjoy Tami and John!