In keeping the theme of interesting connections, Vivian happens to be a friend of Jeannie’s from the time they were 5 or something like that. I’ve known Jeannie for over 10 years, which is about how long I’ve been hearing about this girl Vivian from her.

Well, I finally got to meet Vivian and Armand and shoot their engagement session just two days after Cindy and Andre’s. It was so much fun to finally get to know someone I’ve heard so much about. Vivian and Armand are such a well balanced partners in temperament and interests. It was a great experience to get to work with their energy and chemistry, and the light at the Griffith Observatory was pretty inspiring too.

(Yes, that pair of full length portraits (#14) is my homage to The Sartorialist.)

A treat for this blog: Vivian’s sister, Nancy, came along for the shoot and shot some pictures of her own. I don’t often get to see pictures of me taking pictures, so it’s a bit weird, but I thought I’d share them. They put an interesting context and perspective on my images above.

I’m not sure if I have ever met Cindy before this session at Manhattan Beach, but we have a strangely entwined history. My parents met Cindy’s parents many years ago, and my Reverend dad actually baptized and married them. Crazy, right? Okay, but it doesn’t even end there. Cindy was planning to vacation in LA from Seattle and wanted to do some engagement pictures while she was down here. Her mom mentions me since she heard about me from my parents. Cindy then goes on my website and realizes she knows one of my previous brides from participating in rowing together in Hong Kong almost 10 years ago. Just crazy.

Anyway, being really interested in mysteries of human connection, I knew I absolutely had to shoot the session, and it was amazing. Cindy and Andre have this really deep and beautiful bond, and I feel so privileged to be allowed participate through my photographs.

One picture that stands out to me is one photograph that looks like a normal photograph of them standing next to each (#13 in the slideshow). I actually shot it as a photograph of only Andre, and then only Cindy, and then overlaid them in post-production. I had the concept in my mind when I shot it, but I had no idea the affect it would have on me when I saw it come together. It just looks like I shot it with them together in the same frame. It’s something I’d like to explore deeper in future sessions, but I’d love to hear what you guys think of it.

Alrighty folks. After much teasing (I don’t believe I’ve ever done two teaser blogs for an engagement session), here are some of the highlights from my session with Alex and Joanne. It’s always cool going through a session because it’s like getting an opportunity to relive the events. With those sentiments comes the feelings of what I want to express as I post-process the the images to their final presentation. This was really an amazing experience, and with the weather being the nicest it was all week in both Santa Barbara and Monterey, I got to work with some beautiful light as well as amazing clients. [Photo/Techy note: the Monterey session (with the plane) was taken in the morning. With the cold air, I love the morning light right now.]

Another teaser set from Alex and Joanne’s session.

I included the last picture (which Jeannie took) because it helps to remind me that sometimes a great picture is ALL about sentiment and not because it’s beautiful or technically brilliant. In this picture, I had told Alex and Joanne and jump on the count of 3, but Alex jumped early. I’m in the picture to the right shown by the arrow (on the ground to get my nice angle), there’s the Monterey Jet Center sign in the back, and with the trucks and planes set way into the background, it really brings back that entire experience for me. It’s not a picture that going to win any awards (sorry, baby!), but it’s a picture that I love. It’s all about falling in love with a picture for some weird reason that doesn’t really make any sense anyway, isn’t it?

Alex and Joanne booked me for their upcoming March 8th wedding. While brainstorming some ideas for where to have their engagement session, Alex offered to fly us somewhere for a weekend, while logging hours to get his commercial piloting license. (For those of you who think this sounds scary, I now find it much more frightening to be in a car in LA than in a Cessna with mild turbulence.) So this past weekend, we flew up to Santa Barbara Friday night, to Monterey the next evening, and returned Sunday night. While I am still working on processing their sessions, I thought I’d at least post some teaser pictures of our trip.