Engagement Session with Dawn and Christian

This past weekend I had the opportunity to shoot an engagement session with Dawn and Christian.  They are a hilarious couple!  We spent most of the day laughing and laughing and laughing.  From the time we started planning the engagement session Dawn couldn't figure out where to shoot.  But I kept any any recommendations of "generic" places to shoot because I knew eventually they'd come up with something special.  And I'm so glad they did!

We ended up shooting up the hill on Torrey Pines.  Can you believe that in the 15+ years I've lived in San Diego I've never been up and on those trails!?!  That place let us take some great photos.  Ohh, and the reason it was special is because it is where they had their second date.  I'm gonna say that their first date was more a half date so in my mind this was their first real date.

This is my favorite picture of them!



The first thing I noticed about them when we met was that they matched. Purple shirts AND matching Chuck's. So I had to get a photo of that.



Aren't they so dang cute!?!






We were able to get some awesome photos of the two of them up at the top of Torrey Pines.






With the sun where it was, we were able to get some awesome silhouettes for some killer black and whites!

Fashion Portraits

I did a few fashion shoots over the past few weeks and want to share a couple of my favorite head shots.

Thanksgiving at The Youngren's

This Thanksgiving, I had the honor of participating in the inaugural yearly tradition of a bunch of friends getting together for a post-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving meal.  Call it, Thanksgiving II - Revenge of the Turkey.

If you know The Youngrens, you already know how AWESOME they are (and if you don't....you should).  Well, they just kicked their notch in the notch.  Because this TII dinner had YEARS worth of ideas of two (already married) wedding photographers who have seen it all...and weren't afraid to throw some of their ideas in the mix.

Let's start with the spread.  Can you believe this?


One of the coolest things they did was to give everyone an apple and attach a word to it. During dinner we went around the table talking about what that word meant in our lives.  Mine was Celebrate (I got a kick out of that). 



Well, before we actually got to dinner, we all spent some quality time hanging out and making dinner together....as a family :)






Here we are with a table full of hungry people waiting to chow down!




But wait........there's more!!!  Stay tuned for a time-lapse video of our dinner.  It's legendary.