The Expressive Blog

Rocio and Ruben asked me to do their engagement portraits on the Stanford University Campus, at and around the Stanford Memorial Church. With the beautiful architecture in that part of the Stanford Campus, and lovely spring blossoms all around, it provided an amazing backdrop for me to work creatively with them. Many folks feel at least a little on-the-spot or shy about being in front of the camera... that is until they are in front of my camera, having a blast, as these two did! There was plenty of happy laughter, and we all enjoyed a magical spring-like evening. We collaborated on lots of ideas for fun, interesting photo-opportunities, which helped us create these engagement portraits. Thanks again, Ruben and Rocio, for a wonderful photo-session! I'll be looking forward to the wedding later this year!

Here is a sampling of my favorite images of Rocio and Ruben...

I recently met with Julie and Christopher, for their Santa Cruz engagement session. We roamed around Santa Cruz, and eventually made our way to the beach, where we finished with more photos on the beach at sunset. Here are a few images from this fun portrait session...

View proofs for session here.

Miranti and Scott became engaged at the Ritz Carlton Resort, in Half Moon Bay, so it was the perfect location to do their engagement portrait session. Everyone familiar with Half Moon Bay, knows that it gets a lot of fog, but on this day, the fog was not too thick! Nature actually supplied us with perfect conditions for creating beautiful photographs. We had just a touch of pastel sunset colors to keep this visuals interesting.

Here are a few samples from our session at The Ritz Carlton, Half Moon Bay...

Kathy and Ed did a lot of laughing and smiling, during their Santa Cruz engagement portraits... Not because I asked them to smile... I don't ask people to smile when photographing them, because it usually results in those "fake" smiles that nobody likes to see. Actually, we just had such a playful photo-session, that we spent much of the time laughing. But we created so many cool images, that it's not even funny!

Here are a few of them...

We concluded the photo-session on the West jetty of the Santa Cruz Harbor. This happened to be the night of the full moon, and we captured several very romantic portraits of Ed and Kathy in the moonlight.

Kelli and Philip's e-session was a blast to do. I really enjoyed working with them, and capturing a little of the essence of their relationship. You know, there is a special way two people look at each other, when they are in love. Well, these two are a beautiful example of that! I have selected just a few of my favorite shots from this session. Here they are...

Many thanks to Phuong and Jeff, for allowing me to do an extended engagement session with them. We photographed in Capitola and Santa Cruz, for almost four hours! At first, this post will only have four photos, but over the next several days I will add more. I hope you enjoy them!

I had the pleasure of working with Justin and Ruthie, as we did their marathon engagement session, in and around Santa Cruz, yesterday. Their wedding will be in October, 2009 (take note, brides-to-be, and book your photographer early - like Ruthie & Justin!), at Eagle Ridge Golf Club. We had a blast, roaming and photographing, and I was impressed by how enthusiastic they are about creating cool images, as that's definitely a passion of mine!

Ruthie mentioned how she loves strong vibrant color, which I guarantee there will be plenty of, in these first High Dynamic Range (HDR) images! I've decided to post right away, and add more images as I complete the processing of them. This will be a mix of wild, edgy HDR imagery, plus some more conventional stuff!

I have made three versions of this photo. This second one, has been "desaturated" a bit, to tone down the color.

For this one, I did some color enhancements for a more vintage look. This is my favorite of the three!