San Francisco Engagement Photos: Alison and Justin

I met Alison and Justin a few months ago to talk about their wedding. It’s been fun to get to know a bit about them, their love of good food, jazz and French wine.

Justin proposed in Paris (can you get any more romantic than that?) and the Locally Grown Weddings team is hard at work to bring a bit of that feel to their October wedding in Park Winters.

Alison and Jsutin have a dog they adore, named Zoe. For our engagement photo session together we wanted to include her in the photos. So we chose to go to a couple of parks in San Francisco where she could freely run around.

Here are a few more photos from our session together.

UC Berkeley Engagement Photos: Miranda and Matt

I am always excited to explore a new location for photos and when Miranda and Matt asked me to photograph them at the UC Berkeley Campus, I got into my car and took a field trip to scout the location.

This time of the year proved perfect, with many trees and flowers in bloom, great weather and all around wonderful natural light.

Of course I didn’t scout the entire campus (it’s really big!) but walked around for over 2 hours and found quite a few different spots.This would be a fun shoot!

Miranda had such gorgeous dresses for the occasions that it was hard to pick what to photograph where. We finally settled for pretty much all the locations I had previously chosen and I got a good work out with all my gear (which is good since we are now entering the busiest time of the year for weddings!).

Miranda had this great dress with bicycles on it and Matt wore an awesome tie to match. I am so glad when couples ignore my suggestion not to wear clothes with patterns and prints!

We stopped at a burned down cabin and at a grey wall covered with ivy.

And then we moved to a strange tree for some playful photos.

We ended near the library, as the sun was setting.

There are couple more photos that are just my favorites…stay tunes, they will be posted on the blog in the next couple of days.

One last thing…thank you, Angela LaFlamme for the great make up. I always love working with you.

Sam’s Bar Mitzvah

Sam’s Bar Mitzvah was beautiful and moving. We need to be reminded more often that young people are full of wisdom.

And after the service, everybody enjoyed the great party Katie (Sam’s mom) organized. So much fun!

Thank you to everybody who worked with me:

Venue: Or Shalom Jewish Community

Catering: Beverlee Hassid

DJ: Jeff Werner

Father and Daughter.

Travis and Leona

Golden Gate Park Family Portraits

It’s always such an honor when somebody you work with asks you to take photos of their family. It’s also lots of fun to get to know the important people who love and care for your friend.

Pei-Yee and I work together with the rest of the Locally Grown Weddings team and this was such a wonderful opportunity to spend a few hours together in Golden Gate Park with her whole family.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the shoot. Enjoy!

I love these candid moments! You can’t really expect young children to pose for the camera and often what they do spontaneously is so much cuter.

Pei-Yee’s parents have been together for 40 years…I just love these kind of stories, it’s the romantic in me :)

Here’s a great idea of what to wear: the family chose a combination of blues and purples. These colors worked beautifully with the green and February flowers of Golden Gate Park.

And here’s another “behind the scene” moment…

Michelle in her beautiful dress. You can see Part One of Michelle and Matt’s wedding here. The rest next week!

Idexa Stern 2011: Heather

Beautiful work by Idexa Stern, the artist behind Black and Blue Tattoo in San Francisco. Every year I look forward to photographing her newest creations. Here are a few more images from last year’s session.

I am looking forward to more art in 2012!

Jeff: see more of Idexa’s art work tomorrow.

San Francisco Engagement Shoot: Lisa and Eric

WOW! I can’t believe this amazing January weather…

Lisa and Eric took full advantage of it for our engagement shoot. We went to North Beach, Baker’s Beach and the Marin Headlands for a few hours of fun!

Lisa and Eric are one of those lucky couples who were set up: their relatives thought they would just click and they did! They have been together now for almost two years and their love and excitement comes through when they are together. We chatted about love, relationships, San Francisco, blind dates and crazy San Francisco weather as we moved from one place to the next.

On our way to Baker’s Beach we snacked on chips and chocolate, while we enjoyed one of those rare days of sunshine in this part of the city. I can’t remember another engagement shoot on the beach without the fog!

Wind and cold don’t show, but Eric and Lisa were amazing: they put up with everything and still smiled, took off their shoes, ran and posed for the camera. Thank you!

The view from the Marin Headlands was just beautiful, so clear and crisp was the air.

Waiting for the right light was not easy, as the temperature steadily dropped. But the result was great images with unbeatable light. We shot the last few images fast and ran back to the car.

This last image is my favorite: I love the lights shining on the bridge and the colors are just amazing. San Francisco is such a beautiful city. Congratulations Eric and Lisa, I am looking forward to your wedding in August!