Tag Archives: santa cruz photographer

the branch family | family portrait session on the beach | santa cruz

I have to thank my daughter’s preschool for connecting me with this sweet family. I spent some time with these brothers in their classroom when I photographed them for Midtown Montessori’s new website. I got to observe both boys completely quiet and still as they focused on their work inside the classroom, and then I got to see their extroverted and active sides come out when we met at the beach one windy afternoon for their family portrait session. There is a sense of freedom and fun that the oceanside offers, and the boys were definitely feeling it, as they ran, jumped, laughed and got giddy….all of which kept me thoroughly entertained and permanently pressing the shutter button.

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family portraits in belvedere | bay area photographer

It’s a rare thing to walk into a family home with two young kids and immediately feel a sense of calm. Even more impressive were the abundance of manners and smiles exhibited by their 5 year old boy. I have to give full credit to these two parents who seemed to put so much effort into raising their children with a conscious and loving approach. These are some amazing parents who manage to be educating their kids without sacrificing any of the fun. I loved following them around while the family explored in the garden, read books, danced around, and even played chess together. Yes, they have a 5 year old who has been reading for 3 years and plays chess already…I told you they were an impressive family.

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senior portraits with ‘alice’ | santa cruz photographer

This was more than just taking senior portraits with a high school student, this was like hanging out with Alice in Wonderland. Santa Cruz always feels like a pretty magical place to photograph, but when you add a beautiful, adventurous, willing and kind-hearted girl, then Santa Cruz becomes Wonderland. We had so much fun together, and I feel like our portrait session captured the many different and lovely sides of our sweet ‘Alice.’

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lifestyle portraits | portland alternative realtors

I have a few favorite people in my life, and one of them owns a thriving and innovative business called Portland Alternative Realtors. She asked me to come to Portland to photograph her team and some of their clients for their new advertising campaign, so of course I eagerly booked my ticket! This is a real estate company that is bringing a truly refreshing approach to selling homes. They have successfully avoided the showy, shallow, salesman types, and instead selected a diverse group of down-to-earth people who have the ability to look beyond what is expected and find really unique properties for really unique people.

I love that we managed to pull off the impossible and bring together these busy and smart phone dependent realtors to take some profile shots and group pictures for their website. Then we travelled all over the sunshine filled town to photograph some of their clients in their fitting spaces. I was so inspired to see all of the different ways that people live and follow their passions, and it seems like Portland is a place where people actually take the time to not only develop their passions, but enjoy them too. I have to admit that after 3 days of perfect weather in Portland I was just about ready to convince my family to uproot everything, change states and buy a new house near the farmer’s market and a few restaurants….for real.

This may look like a pretty random collection of images, but imagine them with taglines like these:

* When living 3000 miles away from your grandchildren is no longer acceptable.

* When your Friday night pub crawls have turned into Saturday morning play dates.

* When your storage space is cramping your shoe collection’s style.

* When your books have earned a room of one’s own

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family portrait session at cowell’s | santa cruz photographer

A husband who makes every effort and arrangement to grant his wife’s birthday wish is the sweetest, but a husband who has a super-hot wife who cares for their three angelic kids with her calm and kind ways is the luckiest….so I guess these two are even. Dad scheduled this family portrait session on Mom’s actual birthday, (right before the party that was happening at their house that afternoon) and chose the brand new sand bar beach at Cowell’s for the location. I drove by the spot earlier in the day and was a little worried to discover that there was no beach, only waves crashing against the cliff. When I went back only a few hours later the little beach had appeared, along with the crowds of surfers and families eager to experience the novelty. We explored around and found cliffs covered in algae, a kid-sized cave, beautiful boulders and mounds of seaweed. I had so much fun getting to know each of the personalities within the family, and the whole time I couldn’t help but be inspired by the grace of these two parents, the beauty of their kids and the amazing obedience of their dog. They definitely made having three kids look far easier then I imagined. Getting all three to look at the camera and smile, however…not so easy. Sending out a big Happy Birthday to Chelsea! Wishing you a wonderful new year filled with good times and many more beach days (oh, and a daughter who completely overcomes her fear of the beach! )

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family portrait session | santa cruz photographer

I got to photograph the very beginning of this family, back when big sister had just been born. Fast forward two very short years, and I am back to photograph this family again, together with it’s newest member; a little sister! It’s always so amazing to get to experience the growth of a family and the personalities that emerge once those newborns grow up into toddlers. I loved being introduced to little sister by big sister, and as I stared at this beautiful new life I wondered who she would grow up to become. We managed to have some fun and get some shots in between the fussiness and fatigue that is expected of a newborn, and the desire to play and resistance to pose that is expected of a toddler. In those ‘between’ moments I am always trying to capture the character of each child and each family at that time and the beauty of this ‘stage’ because I am so aware that we’re all in a constant state of evolution.

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willow garage | menlo park | fink architecture

Whenever I’m in Silicon Valley I can sense the energy of innovation. I drive by the headquarters of places like Google, Ebay and HP and I think of all of the amazing minds that are busy creating within those spaces. Willow Garage is one of those spaces. Within their headquarters in Menlo Park, engineers and programmers are busy designing robots that will soon be changing the way that we live. The company exemplifies all that is inventive, bright and modern, and so it’s perfectly fitting that those same adjectives describe Willow Garage’s new meeting and dining area that was designed by Robert Fink of Fink Architecture and JR interiors. All of the details from furniture shapes to the custom designed digital art make you want to embrace new ways of thinking and living.

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dad & daughter | portrait session | santa cruz photographer

I have to say that I love a Dad who keeps his daughter home from school on a Friday just so that they can hang out together, (I hope I’m not ruining any alibis ) a Dad who wants to remember each stage of his daughter’s childhood by doing annual portraits together, a Dad who builds the things that his daughter designs and launches a business together called Sugarline because her middle name is Sugar, but mostly I love a Dad who simply adores his daughter.

I am a self proclaimed post-a-holic, and so I’m going to do my best to resist the urge to post about 100 images form this single portrait session. There were so many great moments, expressions and acrobatics documented that I find it really challenging to be selective. I think that I get extra snap-happy whenever I sense a depth of connection between the people I am photographing, and this father and daughter are so beautifully close and comfortable together that I never noticed the time nor the frames flying by until the raindrops started falling. I could tell that they just truly enjoyed each other’s company…and of course I loved being around them too.

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afternoon with the kids | wilder ranch | family photographer Santa Cruz

There is nothing much better than just watching kids explore the world, and it’s infinitely more entertaining when they happen to be your own children. The energy and joy that these particular kids exude when their senses are stimulated has the power to generate an amnesia effect in their mother, making her forget all of the previous week’s frustrations, and fooling her into believing her senses are younger and her demeanor more playful than they really are….and for that she is grateful.

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