botanical garden engagement session / erica + mccain

i have been dying to do pictures in a botanical garden or nursery forever. i have pretty much tried to talk everyone i have worked with in to doing their shoot there, but somehow it never worked out until now. 

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family photos / downtown san diego

i had the opportunity to do a little mentor session with the amazing hannah mann, who i met through instagram a couple of months ago. i love her style and have loved being able to learn from her. she has taught me so much! 

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bridals / brooke + devin

bridals / brooke + devin

these might be some of my favorite pictures i have ever taken. i did brooke and devin's bridals a little over a month ago at some beaches in la jolla. her dress is to die for, her veil is on point, and we had the most perfect overcast conditions for the pictures. i think doing bridal pictures might be my favorite type of shoot!

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photo shoot / nicole's maternity session

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i was more than excited when nicole, one of my best friends, asked me to do her maternity shoot. nicole is gorgeous and has the most adorable baby belly. what's even better is she let me do whatever i wanted for the shoot (she is the easiest and nicest person i know). i had seriously thought about how i wanted to do it for months, but of course pulled everything together last minute.

i always knew i wanted to use our vintage couch we got for my wedding (from a thrift store for $75! can't beat that!). i decided to put it in front of our back sliding glass door, and hung tulle ikea curtains up as the backdrop. i have been inspired by bright white photographs lately and wanted the perfect lighting. i went to my favorite antique store and found some vintage night gowns that completed the look.

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doesn't this first dress remind you of wendy moira angela darling? i love that it came with a slip and a robe and has such perfect lace detailing! 

this is the second night gown i purchased. it looked a little bit hospital gown-ish on, but we loved having it open for some bare-belly shots. 

for her third outfit i knew i wanted to do a black maxi. luckily sydney has one and left it home for me to wear almost every day. it looked awesome on nicole and created the perfect contrast against the bright white sky. i wanted to do some outdoors, but it was super windy so we didn't get to take a ton. we used the vintage umbrella that kira got me for christmas one year. i think these picture would make the coolest prints (if i do say so myself!).

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thanks nicole for letting me take your pictures! i can't wait to take more of your little lady! 

ps. it was really hard to narrow down these pics- i might have to do another post of outtakes!

photo shoot / boho glam family pictures

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before syd left we really wanted to take family pictures. we hadn't gotten any done since jarman has been an official part of the family. we decided to just try to take them using a tripod and a clicker. it was actually a lot harder than i thought it would be- my clicker wouldn't work if we were too far from the camera, but my good lens makes it so we have to be kind of far. so the ones with the whole family were literally timer pictures where i was running in my six inch heels in the sand to get back to the camera. it was totally worth it though because i love how the pictures turned out.

we decided we wanted to do a boho shoot (which not only provided our stylistic choices but also lots of jokes from the boys). we all tried to wear longish or flowy dresses with big heels. we also brought down a bunch of furs to wear for some of the pictures. we like to choose outfits that loosely go together, rather than things that are obviously matching (like white shirts and jeans). i love the bright blues that pop out of some of the outfits, and we also had creams and browns and black and few others. 

we took the pictures in oceanside (this little outing was on sydney's last day so she got to see the beach and eat at phil's as well). some of them are just in front of people's houses, and the others were on some rocks and stairs that we found. we went down with some ideas of places, but nothing set. it was fun to drive around and find the cutest places we could (we ended up parking the car only once though- all of these locations are within walking distance of each other).

seriously though, how cute is my family? my sisters get prettier and prettier, my mom looks younger and younger, and jarman is handsomer and handsomer. you better believe we will have lots of these pictures all over our house!

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