I have to preface this post by saying that a) if there are a lot of photos, it’s just because I LOVE these two and I couldn’t decide and b) If I go overboard with the all caps, smiley faces, and exclamation points, once again it’s because I LOVE these two and I’m so excited that they’re getting married!!

Ok now that that’s out of the way it’s on to the engagement session. It’s not every day that you get to take engagement photos for your big brother, or that your big brother marries one of your best friends, so this was certainly a big day for me! I’ve always looked up to my brother and I certainly want him to have the very best, so talk about a lot of pressure to come up with some great photos! We did their session in the early morning, before the fog cleared out of San Diego county, while the lighting was even and we could run around to our hearts contents outdoors and not worry about those pesky things called shadows We started out at a great park Chris scoped out right near Pipes cafe (one of my favorite local Encinitas breakfast spots!) and then later on moved to my alma mater, San Dieguito high school (go Mustangs!) I had so much fun and like I said earlier… I had a super hard time deciding which ones to post! But enough of my chatter… on to the photos!!

One of my favorites… aren’t they SOOO cute?!

A couple in the flowers at the park… so scenic

And then on to San Dieguito for some change of scenery

One of the things I love about Chris is that he’s super funny (just ask him, he’ll tell you he’s hilarious ) and I think that Tara would agree. Throughout our whole session he kept making her burst out laughing and I absolutely love all of the shots of her with this huge genuine smile… what a happy couple AWWWW

Getting serious with the old school pads hat. Chris is a HUGE baseball fan!

And there’s that laugh again… I love it!

Chris and Tara I’m SOOOO excited (if I haven’t mentioned it already) that the two of you are getting married! I think that you are an absolute perfect match and I can’t wait for your wedding in December. Also a little shout out to my friend and photographer, Stacy Cross (who I’m sure will see these photos very soon!) who will be their wedding photographer! Since Stacy’s in Texas and Chris and Tara are currently residing in NYC it didn’t work out for her to take their engagement photos, but I can’t wait to see what she captures at their wedding and I’m sure she’s going to do an amazing job! If you’re getting married in Austin check her out

As I mentioned in my last post I’ve been out of town for a week which explains my lack of blogging and my slow email response time in the last few days. If you’ve emailed me recently and haven’t heard back please sit tight and thank you so much for your patience! I didn’t have nearly as much free time for work on my trip as I would have liked and it’s going to take me a few days to get caught up.

So where exactly was I you may ask? I was down in San Diego visiting family and celebrating some pretty exciting news! It’s a big year for my family because both my brother AND my sister are recently engaged. My brother lives out in NYC with his fiance (who just happens to be one of my best friends from college, lucky me ) and they were in town for a fabulous fiesta engagement party. While we were all in town I was lucky enough to shoot engagement photos for both Chris and Tara and for Allison and Mark as well. I had an absolute blast and I cannot wait to show you both of these sessions. Working with people who are fun and bursting with personality (which all of these folks happen to be) is my absolute favorite and I have to admit that the fact that they’re all family made it just that much better.

I know that my sister is blog stalking me until I post up at least a teaser photo so I figured I’d do one from each session to hold everyone over until I get a chance to do the full post. So without further ado my fabulous siblings…

My brother Chris and his fiance Tara (sorry for the goofy hat photo Tara, I just couldn’t resist it’s too cute!)

and my sister Allison and her fiance Mark
I can’t wait to show you more!!

Jessica and Sal got engaged at Disneyland, so when it came time to pick a spot for their engagement photos it was the obvious choice! I happen to love Disneyland so any chance to do my job (taking photographs) while hanging out with an awesome couple like these two AND roaming around the happiest place on earth all at the same time was like a perfect afternoon for me I loved how their super vibrant outfits just happened to go perfectly with all of the spots that we picked out while walking around, it was like it was meant to be! I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve been a little bit sparse in the blog posting but that’s just because I’ve actually been out of town for a whole week… more on that to come… so I haven’t had much time for getting my blog posts together. I did however manage to collect a few of my favorites from the session so that Jessica and Sal could get a sneak peek!

Trying to balance on a carousel while holding a camera in front of your face and avoiding being knocked over by the moving horses turned out to be trickier than I’d imagined, but I’m glad we tried it because I love this shot!

We also made a stop over in California Adventure for part of the afternoon. There are some great areas with bright colors, plus it was a lot less crowded!

Jessica and Sal thank you so much for a fabulous afternoon at Disneyland I had so much fun hanging out and chatting with you and I can’t wait for your wedding in August!

You may have noticed that it’s been a while since my latest blog post. No, I’m not neglecting my blog (at least not on purpose) I’ve just been SUPER busy! And not just busy with the same old same old, I’ve had the chance in the last few weeks to do some projects that have taken me out of my typical world of weddings and portraits and into something a little more… dusty.

You may or may not know that before I was a photographer I was actually an architect. My husband and I met in architecture school way back when and I’m proud to say that he is still doing the architecture thing, and doing a darn good job of it as well! Ben works at the awesome west LA firm of Marmol Radziner and Associates in their Prefab department. For those of you not “in the know” prefab homes are one of the hippest trends in sustainable architecture right now. The homes are completely constructed in modules in the office’s factory in Vernon, and then shipped to the construction site to be assembled by crane. If you can’t really picture it just hold tight… the visuals are coming

This week Marmol Radziner installed its first Los Angeles prefab house in Venice and man oh man did we draw a crowd! I think that the neighbors were a little overwhelmed to see the site go from an empty lot one day to a complete home in only two days. There were crowds of onlookers, a chopper taking aerial photos, and even news crews. I was asked to come along to document the process and I thought I’d share some of my favorite shots from the day with a little play by play action so you can get an idea of how the whole thing works.

The modules are shipped from the factory on flat bed trucks, fully finished (down to the drywall, tile, plumbing fixtures, and even the refrigerator!) and shrink-wrapped in plastic.

Once they reach the site a team of workers unwrap the modules one at a time and prepare to hook them up to the waiting crane. Each module is attached to the crane by only four “pick points” which are located one at each corner of the module.

After the module is hooked up and gets the all clear it’s time for the exciting part…. lifting the building up into the air to set it in place

In this case because the site was a residential neighborhood with not a lot of extra space… the modules were actually lifted up and over the neighbor’s house to be set in place. Talk about exciting!

Once in place the modules are set down and the crew on the ground nudges them into position. After a bit of fine tuning it’s on to the next piece.

Two days (one for the first floor, one for the second) and 14 modules later and the once empty lot is now home to a shiny prefabricated house. It’s an amazing process and even after seeing it with my own eyes it’s a little hard to believe! In just about one month the house will be move in ready. All that is left to do is to “button up” the seams between the modules and install the landscaping. Check out the house at around 3pm on day 2 of construction… amazing!

If you want any more info on prefabricated homes like this one, please check out Marmol Radziner Prefab. They make a beautiful product right here in LA, doesn’t get much better than that!