wildflowers | san diego photographer

so i love driving up the coast every week because i get a chance to gaze at the wildflowers, or what james lovingly calls the weeds. i forced him to stop last week so we could get some pictures of one of the best wildflower seasons we have had (thanks to all the rain). here are a few pics, happy week!!

heather and randall, baby on the way

we love when we get the chance to do photos for a couple we know, especially when they are as much fun as heather and randall. heather and randall are expecting a little one in december, so we met them in la jolla to do some pre-baby belly pics, and heather looked as glam as ever. randall loves being funny with the camera, and it doesn't help that james encourages him, i guess marines have the same sense of humor. we started at la valencia hotel, because we knew that randall would love all the pink, and then headed down to the beach for some great wave splashing shots. here are some of our faves from the shoot, congrats heather and randall, we can't wait to meet the little one...

happy new year!

well it was a fabulous 2008 and james and i spent most of today thinking about how 2009 could possibly be any better. and then it hit us, we are getting married in 2009, so that will top everything great that happened last year--our engagement, my promotion, my new car, james' new job, our business, etc.

as part of our plan to make 2009 even better, we are launching a new part of our website, targeted at family portraits, kids portraits, babies (and newborns), maternity and boudoir photography, so look for that soon. we will be featuring new promotions as part of our website launch, so check back on the blog to take advantage of these very cool deals.

as a little preview of some of the amazing pictures you'll see on our new site, here are some holiday photos we did of little sam and luke. they are somewhat frequent guests on the blog, and are so adorable, and sam was almost walking at only 10 months! luke likes to be a little stubborn, but that makes him that much cuter.

our engagement photos

i never thought it would be so difficult to get some pictures taken. i mean, we do this for other people on a fairly regular basis, and we always make them look amazing, so i don't know why i was so nervous for our own engagement photos, especially considering that i love our photographers' work and regularly stalk their blog in awe.

after weeks of working out with my very cool trainer chris, and some fine handy-work by the amazing jenn at stila, i finally picked out like 10 outfits and met our fabulous photographers jeff and erin for our photos. we started at balboa park and after a bit of coaching from jeff and seeing erin lying on the ground to get some shots, we were naturals (well almost).

although of course i was extremely critical of my pictures (i look tired, i have triple chins) i think they came out great, and can't wait to see the rest of them online. i especially liked the one of me with james blurred out, ha ha.

i think james looks like the little rockstar he is here, maybe my second fave

jeff and erin are amazing at what they do, and they are so much fun to hang out with. after our session, we headed to the gaslamp strip club for some martinis and steaks and a lot of fun conversation. we are so glad we chose jeff youngren photography for our wedding, to see the rest of the pictures, check out their blog.

rae and alex: engaged!

rae and alex are another one of our couples who we just immediately clicked with, and we were so excited to shoot their engagement around downtown, since we don't get to do that as much as some other places. we met first down by the star of india, and they couldn't have looked more perfect...






next we headed down to the fish market and the midway museum to get a couple different harbor views, trying to avoid the nosy tourists, who i am sure thought we were shooting celebrities...

the light couldn't have been more perfect under these very cool trees, this is one of my favorites from the day, i love their happiness...

next it was over to petco park where we stood in awe at the new condo in left field and enjoyed the park mostly to ourselves



finally a quick stop under the gaslamp sign and a quick kiss in front of the trolley to finish the night--how many people can say they actually stopped traffic for their engagement session, so cool!






rae and alex, we are really looking forward to the wedding in january and having even more fun downtown!