Jay and Nicole's Anniversary Shoot at the Queen Mary, Long Beach

This shoot (from back in February 2012) was so fun, because,

1.  I was working with a very photogenic couple,
2. I was shooting at a location that I had never been to ever, let alone taken pictures at,
and 3. It was a night shoot and also outside of my norm

Shooting at night in a location that I have never been to was definitely going to be challenging, my only light source would be either my flash (which I HATE using) or whatever light sources we could find around the beautiful Queen Mary ship in the Long Beach harbor.  This would limit where we could shoot, but I was determined to do a good job with this!

Jay arranged the entire shoot for his wedding anniversary without telling his wife any of the plans.  She thought they were going to dinner and I met them in front of the restaurant with my camera in hand.  She had no idea, but as the ship's restaurants are pretty high end, she was dressed to the nines and ready to go for the shoot!

We walked around the ship and took some great, romantic shots of the two of them, and as of today it's still one of my favorite shoots that I've done. :) :)

Amanda and Mike Engagement Session (Oct 2012)

Well hello there, old friend.  Blogger.com is a link I haven't typed into my browser bar in quite awhile...although I've been meaning to!  Eeks.  I committed to getting back to blogging quite awhile ago...then life happened.  You know how it goes.  But I'm going to try this again and force myself to post here...there's actually a purpose to it, so hopefully that will help me stay motivated.

So I randomly picked an old session to post here for my first post in a year (and that one didn't even really count as a photo post)...this super cute couple came to me for their engagement session, and rumor has it they just got married in Hawaii last weekend!  Congrats to the beautiful bride and groom. :) :)

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Michelle and Isaac

So about 2 months ago, some may recall that I vacationed in the gorgeous state of Florida for 3 weeks...well it turns out that while I was gone, I happened to miss a LOT going on back home.  For instance, my 20 year old sister and her boyfriend decided to head off to Las Vegas with my mom and get engaged and then married!  I didn't find out about it until I got back from Florida...wow, was that a shocker.

I will say though, that I absolutely adore my sister's boyfriend HUSBAND, my now brother-in-law, and that if she was gonna go off and get married without telling anyone, I'm glad it was with him.

They're planning a ceremony/mini-wedding for March 2012 so that friends and family can actually be there and celebrate with them.  So while they've already tied the knot and skipped the engagement stage pretty much, we decided to do some engagement-style photos for the them so that they could still have the photos and use them for the invites or save the dates or whatever they want.

We planned to go down to the Santa Monica Pier to do their photos as it has a bit of sentimental value for them, but as the weekend we were going to do them turned out to be the "Carmageddon" weekend, we got scared off thinking about driving to the 10 fwy to go to Santa Monica which is where the 405 shut-down actually began (turns out the freeway really wasn't that bad after all). 

So instead I suggested we take the Metro train to downtown L.A. and do some pictures there since I've been dying to go there and take photos forever now.  We'll still go to Santa Monica soon and do pics there too, but for now we have these photos.

Here's a few highlights from our long day of walking around the downtown area and hopping on and off the train.    There was more I wanted to photograph, but bellies were getting hungry and patience was running thin, so we called it a day. :)

Lindsey and Nick's 5th Wedding Anniversary Pics

What a fun morning I had today!  I met up with Lindsey and Nick who recently celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary.  Lindsey's gift to Nick was a photoshoot with little 'ol me!  I felt really special. :) :)

They decided that they wanted to do the shoot in downtown El Segundo.  I know Lindsey is a huge fan of this city in general...it has the cutest main street and it's like you're in a little Mayberry in the middle of a big 'ol city.  Nick's also got ties here as the company he owns and runs, Clear Media, has their office down the street from the main drag.  We were sure to walk over there and take some pics in front of his building as well. :)

I had such a fun time because we just strolled down the street and stopped and took pictures in several spots along the way.  It was like a walking photo tour with two awesome models to go along with it. :)

We got lots of cute pics today, but I just wanted to share a few with you for right now.  I'll definitely be posting more soon! :)

Andrea and Jamel Engagement Photos (continued)

Oh I had so much fun editing these pictures...I think this might be my favorite shoot to date.  Everything was just so perfect.  Lighting was great, colors were vibrant, subjects were beautiful, everything was just the right recipe to make these pictures....and i absolutely love how they turned out. :) :)

I'm also much happier with my formula for this different color variation...the "retro" look I guess you could call it....I have been tweaking the formula for MONTHS now....and I think I'm finally at a place where I'm happy....I'll never be 100% satisfied with anything, but I do like this look....

Now that it's getting towards what I want the final look to be, I'd love your feedback on it.  Below is a mixture of regularly colored photos, "retro" photos (I need to come up with my own name for that look), then the b/w and sepia ones....feedback creates improvement, so i'd love to hear it. :)

Now, on with the photos! :)