For a sale coming up in celebration of my birthday!

Marlene and Ryan (and new additions Jake and Bodey) have been pretty regular clients ever since their wedding several years ago. In fact, they’ve had great Christmas shoots every year since then, so much that their friends and family are eagerly awaiting their holiday card this year! I won’t spoil that surprise, but I do want to share a couple of my favorite images from their session last week.

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While we offer full framing services, I know some people just can’t resist dropping loads of cash at Room and Board. Just in case you’re interested in doing it yourself, i think they have a few good tips to enjoy!

Any session that ends in dancing is a good session in my book. Throughout, we promised Isabella dancing at the end; of course, I didn’t realize it involved the Chicken Dance…

This one is my favorite. I was too loud, overpowering the music. :)

PJ is in that headstrong stage. I really don’t mind, because at least he fixated on the very cool (and easily croppable) frog garden rock. Here are a couple of my faves from the Christmas card shoot:

Fall is such a great time to shoot! We showed up and I immediately fell in love with the girls’ “holiday leggings” and converse.

First things first, congratulations to April Ruiz who was the first to comment on the 600th post. As my posting continues, I’ll have more of these contests, because it’s been fun this time around.

Next! I will have a lot of travel coming up, coming back to Southern California after these last 6 weeks in New York, travelling with family around the holidays, and then to Phoenix at the beginning of January for Imaging USA. What does this mean to my clients? It means little in terms of delivery, as all my holiday deadlines were made to work around these travel dates. It does, however mean that new clients wanting to book sessions are encouraged to book early!

Regarding New York, I have been thoroughly enjoying my time here. Starting in 2009, I won’t be charging travel for New York metro area weddings. This means if you’re getting married in either Los Angeles/Orange counties or the NYC metro area, it’s all the same pricing!

I’m going to re-post holiday and Christmas card designs, as I’ve had a few clients unable to find them. These designs are $3/card for 5×7 tent-style cards, and $2 for 4x5ish postcard style cards. Any customization of colors, fonts, or a fully custom design will incur a $100 design fee. Like wedding albums, all changes must be made at the same time to encourage speedy delivery.

This post will remain a sticky at the top of the blog through December 1st.

While some might not think it the perfect location for an engagement shoot, I was inspired. And Heather and Kristin were definitely up for the idea!

I was so happy when my friend Desiree asked me to second shoot for her at Christine and Avery’s wedding at Florentine Gardens. First, Desiree and I worked so well together back in June, and second, I wanted to see some East Coast weddings.

We started with a bit of getting ready, then on to their first look.

A pretty expressive kid contingent, no?

At the last minute, Christine decided to move the ceremony into the ballroom. It was probably a good move, because the rain followed shortly after.

Then, on to the reception and the first dance!

I love this candid moment of Christine’s mother

I surprised myself and did something completely tourist-y the other day. I went to the Statue of Liberty. I really didn’t intend to, but am glad I did. Ellis Island is very interesting, far more interesting than Liberty Island.

But that’s not the point of this post. The point is that on the subway ride home I had a window seat and saw the most incredible graveyard. So yesterday in the midst of peak color, I went exploring. It’s actually 3 different graveyards, but I primarily photographed in only one of them, as it was more decrepit and clearly let go. The interesting thing is that there are graves from as recent as 2007, and yet the cemetary has obviously been headed toward ruin a lot longer than that.

At one point we met the caretaker of the side that was, well, taken care of better. He explained while there were so many gates and arches. Sections of the cemetary were sold in societies of 50 or 100 sites.

Sadly, there were many vandalized areas

More random limbs

I’m glad I went yesterday… can’t quite imagine myself walking around a graveyard with today’s gloomy weather!