I’ve often thought about what a privilege it is to be a guest at a wedding. After all, your primary responsibility is to have as much fun as possible! Well, on a fall day in the wine country, I found myself, camera in hand, and yet feeling like a welcome guest at Jen and Chris’s engagement session. They invited me up to Sebastopol, where they had prepared amazing itinerary, and being wine country connoisseurs they also chauffeured from place to place. We started off at Red Car Wine Co., taking advantage of their funky tasting room décor and their generous offer to allow us to photograph there. Afterwards, with the sun falling lower in the sky, we headed off to a big open field. Jen and Chris both work with the land, and so they didn’t hesitate to give me a helpful botany lesson as we waded through shrubs and grass. Finally, we found ourselves among the turning leaves of an abandoned vineyard, jumping around and juggling apples near a dilapidated house. By that time, the memory of traffic and daily grind of the city had faded far off to the periphery of my mind. I felt like the three of us had been transformed into children at play. Jen and Chris, your thoughtful planning and your boundless energy really made this an amazing day. Thank you! I can’t wait for the wedding next year!!
Archive for the ‘Engagements’ Category
Jen + Chris | Wine Country Engagement Session
November 10, 2011Engagement Session at Stanford | Marina + Eugene
September 29, 2011It all started with a painting that was hanging in their home. Marina, an artist herself, had created this image of a mysterious, hatted man and femme fatale in a red dress. They were somewhere in Buenos Aires, perhaps. Marina and Eugene both attended Stanford, and there were many spots on campus that were meaningful to them. So, when we started thinking about our engagement shoot at Stanford University, I immediately envisioned art imitating life imitating art. And so, sexy red shoes be damned, we traipsed and clicked all around the Stanford campus on a beautiful, warm Palo Alto afternoon.
Fort Mason Engagement Session | Colleen + Jim
September 13, 2011My clients know that I favor the ‘formal’. I love to see suits, ties, dresses, high heels in my photos. But more than that, I love to depict couples in a way that’s true to them. When I met Colleen and Jim for our engagement shoot on a breezy San Francisco afternoon, I was thrilled to see them in jeans, hoodies and matching flip flops. The session was relaxed like a lazy Sunday afternoon should be. We explored the grounds of Fort Mason, and strolled around the Marina. I loved the way the texture and color of their outfits was complemented by the wood, metal and concrete, and how perfectly connected and natural they were together. Congrats on the engagement, guys!
Academy of Sciences Engagement Session | Alla + Pavel
August 31, 2011As a kid, I went on more than one field trip to the Exploratorium. I couldn’t put my finger on it then, but something about the place was obviously psychedelic. When Alla and Pavel requested a photo shoot in and around the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, I was eager to revisit the surreal atmosphere of the ‘science museum’. To the casual observer (and perhaps to my awesome couple) the spaces in and around the Academy of Sciences may look ordinary, but for me, well…there seemed to be a lot going on just beneath the surface. Looks can certainly be deceiving, and, in this case, the ‘eyes’ certainly have it.
Gilbert + Rudy | Engagement Session
August 25, 20119/10/11 is one of those numerically perfect wedding dates, and couples know that on such dates, vendors’ calendars fill up quickly. Gilbert and Rudy walked into my studio back in February of this year and crossed it off my calendar, so I’ve had a long time to think about the kind of engagement shoot we’d do together. Rudy considers himself a night owl, and he proposed to Gilbert at the end of a long, intimate, meticulously planned evening. These guys have serious style (they even have their own wedding logo, which I’ve happily added to the photographs!) so I wanted to create an elegant, moody, intimate feel, to perhaps capture the essence of the night of the proposal, and show the intense connection between them. Although they already wear their rings, the wedding day is finally right around the corner at the Marriott in Union Square. Can’t wait!
Scott and Natalie’s engagement shoot took us from the stately Legion of Honor in the western part of San Francisco, all the way across town to Chez Spencer, where they actually got engaged. From the moment they met me at the Legion of Honor, I could sense their energy and intense connection with one another. Luckily for us, SF provided an afternoon flooded with equally intense sunlight, which really set the mood for the session. As Natalie and Scott danced and connected, I watched and captured the light dancing between and around them. There was something undeniably elegant and stoic about them as a couple, and I didn’t hesitate to break some rules by throwing them in the path of hard, direct light. Towards evening, as things got more mellow, we took the opportunity to get some iconic shots around the restaurant where Scott proposed. Overall, it was a great afternoon, and afterwards, we shared delicious smoky martinis at Chez. I can’t wait to document Scott and Natalie’s wedding at Hans Fahden in September!
