Viewing entries tagged
family photos

Holiday Family Portraits @ Filoli Gardens, Woodside

November 22, 2023

I’ve worked a lot with Crystal over the years, mostly on big corporate gigs and a few weddings – but I’ve never had the privilege of photographing her and Gerald’s lovely family. Even though we’re almost in December 2023, it was sunny and 62 degrees for this morning’s family portrait session in Woodside, CA. Crystal wanted to explore the expansive, amazing property of Filoli Gardens, which is one of the few private locations that are actually pretty friendly to professional photography (as long as you purchase an entrance ticket). This means we had to dodge around a few other families of like mind, but the place is so huge this isn’t a big deal. Oh, they don’t allow dogs, but there’s some cool areas adjacent to the parking lot so we were able to include their best friend Lexi in a few photos at the start. Their 2 1/2 year old son kinda stole the show with his adorable grin, which required only a little M&M-fueled inspiration at key points during the hour-long session :)

I’m really happy with how the photos turned out, and I hope the family is thrilled with the results as well. It’s good to know that Filoli still looks amazing in the wintertime – even though there’s no blooming flowers, there’s so many nooks / archways / doorways / walls with tons of character to explore, I didn’t miss the flora one bit. Enjoy may faves below, there’s so many more than this in the full collection!

Multi-Generation Family Portraits @ Stanford Campus near Palo Alto, CA

December 26, 2022

The toughest shot to get is always the one with the “most eyeballs.” So when we have multiple families coming together, I try to get that most difficult photo done as early as possible in the session. Especially if there are little ones that may end up in tears or just not having it – at some point during the shoot. I met this family near The Oval on the Stanford campus – a great location as it is photographer-friendly and has lots of interesting architectural elements / settings to use. When you have a group this big, though, you aren’t exploring a bunch of different settings all over the place. You pick one central location you can do most of the photos at, and have nearby locations within easy walking distance for when you break the shoot down to the individual families. It’s also hard with these large shoots to include a bunch of candid photos since there’s so many permutations of different groups we want to accomplish – but I still managed to get a few in-the-moment shots in-between the more formal posed groups.

Forest and Beach Family Photos @ Natural Bridges in Santa Cruz, CA

December 23, 2022

Natural Bridges is a great spot as you can start in the forest/field setting at the rear entrance, and end at the beach. The beach is often crowded, especially the money-shot angle that has the natural bridge in the background, so I always start with the more private forested region off Delaware Ave.

This family I swear could all be models, and I had such a fun time capturing how much they adore each other. They even pulled off some pretty well-matched outfits, which is always risky. I think they nailed in, and I’m pretty sure they think I did too!

Anderson Lake County Park (Morgan Hill) Family Photo Session

March 18, 2021

I know it’s a gloomy, rainy day today in the Bay Area, but as soon as that sun comes out it’s picture time! I used to live and work in Morgan Hill, but I’d never actually shot a session at Anderson Lake County Park. My client’s dad has limited mobility, so we mostly picked a few different locations that would make for interesting backdrops. I used off-camera flash for most of these to control the light. Enjoy a few of my faves below!

Windy, Fun Family Photos @ Pajaro Dunes, Watsonville

April 15, 2019

I’ll be honest, I fully expected this family to cancel their photo shoot. They are multiple generations, coming together at a rental house in Pajaro Dunes to celebrate Mom/Grandma’s 70th, so it was a special occasion for everyone. However. Something happened with the weather that day in the early afternoon. A light breeze turned into steadily increasing winds. The marine layer came in and blotted out the sun, rendering the environment in flat, gray tones. And it was cold, more so as the wind picked up. Not the ingredients you want when you have a bunch of people to capture at their best. But I showed up, they showed up – and were like, “we’re dressed, we’re here, let’s do this!” I immediately perked up and saw that there was opportunity here. I stressed that if they were expecting perfect hair and a California sunset, that they would be disappointed – but if they wanted someone (me) to capture some fun, authentic moments in the face of 40mph winds, well I’M YOUR GUY!

So we did it, we did the shoot, it was great and we managed to get a few keepers along the way. It just goes to show that attitude beats the weather any day! Enjoy a few of my faves below: