Steve and Jackie are really special to both Sarah and I. The fact that I’ve known Steve for about 20 years, and Sarah is really close with Jackie as well. They have spent the last few years teaching Sunday School together, and have an almost weekly Bible study. Needless to say, when they move to Michigan after their wedding for Jackie to pursue her Masters degree, we’ll miss them.

Steve and Jackie, it’s been an honor to work with you on your wedding. I’ve enjoyed the privilege of knowing you and having you two as part of our family.

May God bless you in your upcoming marriage, and may we remain like family.

If you’ve spent any time on this site, you’ll see that I frequent Union Station with my couples. I list it as an option based on what feel they’re going for, and they just fall in love with the old hollywood feel, the history, and the art-deco architecture. The Disney Concert Hall is a new one for me. I’ve seen a lot of engagement and “day after” photo shoots there, but haven’t had the chance to incorporate the amazing building into any of my work yet. I really enjoyed playing around with the light, and I fell in love with the ambiance of the place. Whoever designed the building had photographers in mind, cause this place seriously is amazing. I’m looking forward to our next shoot there.

So, without further ado, here are the images that we captured that day.

Thanks so much Dionté and Tiffany! Sarah and I can’t wait for your wedding at St. Regis!

Jen O’Sullivan will often put on a charity fundraiser photoshoot for a great cause. I always love donating my time for this. It gives me a chance to get some face-time with people I wouldn’t normally get a chance to meet, and it gives me a way to give to charity that I can truly enjoy. This time was in the beautiful Central Park of Santa Clarita.

Tim and Tara met in High-school and have been dating ever since then! Tara is a media planner for a very prominent media agency in Santa Monica, and Tim develops aircraft parts in Valencia. They’ll be tying the knot next May.

May God bless you in your marriage Tim and Tara!

When I met Steve and Rachel, I knew that Union Station would be the perfect location for our Engagement Session. They both collect vintage luggage. Steve’s Wedding present from Rachel is in fact the luggage in the images you see below. I don’t often get an engagement session where props are brought along, but I really enjoyed this. Not only did they bring the luggage, but Rachel’s florist made her a bouquet to match her dress, and Steve brought his classic Mercedes convertible as a prop. He called up a couple days before and said “Hey, what if I bring my classic Mercedes as a prop?” I was floored. I started picturing right then the shot you see above. I knew I had to get an amazing shot with the Benz. These are clients that truly appreciate what I do, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.

All in all we had a great evening. Sarah met us at Kings for some dinner after the shoot and they introduced us to some amazing champagne(sparkling wine?) called Sophia. I would highly recommend it to any champagne aficionado.

So here are my favorite images from the evening. Thanks Steve & Rachel for a wonderful evening!

I was shooting a couple engagement portrait sessions this last week for Jen O’Sullivan who puts on a charity fundraiser quite often. My first couple for the day was Ryan and Destiny. A super cute couple that have known each-other since they were ten.

Through our conversation, while we were shooting, it turns out that Ryan not only lived in Tucson, but he went to my rival High-School, and attended the same church I did. He graduated a several years after me, so I’d never met him… He moved out to Yucca Valley to attend a school that offers culinary arts. Destiny also goes to the same college. She’s going for animation. Her goal is to work for Pixar one day. I don’t blame her… I love Pixar. Their movies are among the best, and most creative.

It was a joy to shoot Ryan and Destiny’s engagement photos. Their love is so apparent. They only have about a month and a half until their wedding day.

One last thing that I think is super cool and special. They haven’t kissed each-other yet, and they’re waiting until their wedding day! How awesome is that? Their first kiss is going to be soooo special!

Ryan and Destiny,
May God bless you and keep you, may He cause His face to shine upon you, and give you peace.

I pray that you two have a blessed marriage!

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Thanks to Jen O’Sullivan for putting this together, she organized, planned, and got everything in order. The engagement photoshoot was held at the Sunset Restaurant in Malibu, Which just happens to be the same restaurant that I took Sarah for our first date, and first anniversary(not wedding.) It’s a really great restaurant with an incredible view, and very, very delicious food. The plan was to have about 50 photographers, and 50 engaged couples that hadn’t yet chosen a photographer for their wedding yet. That way, everyone had the opportunity to work with 4-5 couples or photographers.

I was truly lucky to have 6 great couples to photograph. The hard part was this: I had only 15-20 minutes with each couple. That barely gives me any time… Most of my engagement sessions last between 2-3 hours, and we get dinner afterward to get to know each-other better. To top it off, as a rule, I know that the first 15 minutes don’t count when taking photos, It takes a little bit for my subjects to get used to the camera. In general, 15 minutes. So, as you can imagine, this put me in kind of a pressure-cooker of a situation. How am I supposed to make my couples look amazing without the warm-up time? And without the time that I usually take before the shoot to build up my rapport, and get to know my clients? To be honest, it felt a little dirty and quick. Get in/ get the shot/ get out. But you know what? it somehow worked! I got some incredible shots of my couples, and I think they’re going to love them.

Thanks Lisa and Trace, Amanda and Chad, Jen and Tim, Allison and Branden, Gabriela and Yariel, and of course Kim and Vincent! I had a ton of fun with you guys, and you all did such a great job with the portraits!

So, with no further ado(did I use that correctly?)… Here some of the photos:

And don’t forget to leave a comment!

Loren and I are both photographers… Wedding photographers in fact! We are both members of Pictage(my order fulfillment company.) He and Rachel are having their coffee themed wedding in December and needed some engagement photos. Our original plan was to meet at the Lucky Strike bowling alley in the Block @ Orange(about a half hour drive south of Los Angeles), but due to their(Luck Strike’s) lack of communication we couldn’t. I can never stress enough that when you want to have a photo-shoot in another business to call and confirm that it’s ok to do so. Well Loren called a few times and they said it would be ok… We got there, and the manager on duty told us we would need a permit and authorization from their attorneys.

We obviously still needed to get our e-session taken care of, so we looked around “The Block” and we saw that there was a Starbucks Coffee shop in the complex. Now I mentioned that Loren and Rachel are having a coffee themed wedding, which I think is pretty dang cool, and we thought it appropriate to get some shots in and around Starbucks.

Now I still haven’t upgraded to the Canon 5d Markii camera, but Loren has, and I wanted to test it out and see how much I loved it. I also haven’t done much with a fisheye lens, and so I tried a few shots out with that as well. So Throughout this shoot I used Loren’s beautiful camera, and of course it worked out great with my Noah Camera Holster which I knew it would(I’ve tested it on multiple cameras.) We had a ton of fun with the engagement session(as always,) and we went to a brewery/restaurant afterwards and had some pretty dang good food.

Ok… So here are some photos of the beautiful couple… Hope you enjoy! and don;t forget to subscribe to my blog!

Last month We went out a couple of days for their engagement session. One of my favorite places in Los Angeles is downtown, by the Disney Opera House. We got there a little late, and the light was fading pretty quickly, but we managed to get some great shots. We decided to go out the next day to Lake Balboa to finish up, and make sure we got some great stuff. We ran into a few geese, and they decided to attack me a little bit. I survived of course…

Take a look at what we got:

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I was visiting my parents in Tucson for Mother’s Day, and Stephen and Sarah wanted some engagement photos… Yes, I know, they’ve been married for 3 years now, but they wanted to get engagement photos taken for their 3 year anniversary…

So we went to the church that they got married in, and took some photos around the area… Until, we got attacked! Killer bees decided that we shouldn’t be in their area, so we had to leave. We left the church, and drove 30 seconds away to the reception area(El Conquistador Resorts) and finished up with our engagement session. We had a ton of fun, and got some great photos that I love.

Check out the photos that we got:

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