I love the above photo.  It looks so classic.  Would you believe that’s right in the middle of Beverly Hills?  I would not have expected such a scenery right in the middle of the city.  That’s actually their reflection in a pond.  I love the slight texture it has from the surface of the water.

Jacky and Matthew are SO in love!  I love watching the way they look at each other.  They have such admiration for one another and have such amazing chemistry.  I could instantly feel their connection and see how happy they make each other.

This park was literally on the corner of 2 major streets in Beverly Hills.  I would’ve never expected such a beautiful spot in the middle of the city!  I love all the palm trees!  It’s so LA.

charity:water update – we’re at $100!  Thanksgiving is just 10 days away!  10 more days to have your comments go towards a charity:water!  If you just joined us, I’m donating A buck a comment!

Another note: I rearranged my shoot schedule and now have another spot for a portrait session available.  I have a prime afternoon/sunset session available on Nov 21st in Monterey!  Email me if you’re interested!  caroline [at] carolinetran [dot] net.

Happy Monday!  Have a great week!

Happy Monday!  I hope you all had a great weekend!  I enjoyed a (mostly) non-working weekend and eager to jump into this busy week!  I’m excited for my 2 shoots today, but want to squeeze in this blog post before I head out! If you haven’t seen, this session was featured on the awesome Snippet & Ink!  Check it out and leave a comment to share some love!

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Jennifer & Kevin spent most of their relationship living on opposite sides of the country.  When I met Jennifer, she was living in LA and Kevin was living in New York.  I was so excited to hear that a few weeks later, she packed up and moved to New York.  We planned their engagement session all through email.  We threw around many ideas, but when I heard that Kevin was a pilot, I had to do their session on an airport!  Good thing Kevin was able to make the arrangements to allow us to shoot on the Santa Monica airport!

This next shot might be my favorite shot!

I shared with Jennifer my vision of paper airplanes, and Jennifer topped off the idea by folding the paper airplanes out of vintage maps!

I had this vision of doing one of my tiny people shots with paper airplanes flying all over in the sky.  Well, flying the planes ended up being harder than we thought, but at the end, they looked really cool scattered all around the ground.  It’s good to come in to the shoot with a general vision, but more importantly, with flexibility and an open mind.

I ended up loving how the paper planes scattered all round the floor!

And this last shot was funny.  I tend to lay on the ground a lot when I shoot, which I did for this photo above.  Right after I snapped this, a truck drives around them and right next to me.  Turns out to be the police.  I get off the ground and to show proof that we had permission to shoot there.  He gives us a hard time, but in the end, he leaves saying, “Okay, but don’t do anything where an idiot like me might run you over.”  that cracked me up!

I can’t wait for their travel themed wedding next month!!!

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This session was featured on:

Snippet & Ink

Betty contacted me a few months ago about doing a vintage inspired military engagement session.  Brandon’s in the Army and is getting deployed, so they wanted to do an engagement session before he leaves.  They both live in Texas now, so while they were visiting LA, we headed out to Pasadena for our session.

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So here’s the story of boy meets girl:

I love how much fun they have together.  I love watching them laugh.

How often do you find a couple making out in the middle of an intersection?    I love it!

And I love how much body language tells you…  You can tell so much about the big picture by looking at the details.

And of course the big picture is super cool too! 

And I just love how cute this last image is.  I was looking for a place to do a normal shadow, but instead we found this cool shadow instead!

Betty & Brandon, thank you so much for this fun shoot!  I wish you two all the best, especially while you’re apart, and look forward to Brandon coming home!

Different from what I usually shoot, isn’t it?  Diane and Eric wanted some night shots with his car.  I usually shoot very light-weight, just my camera and 2 lenses.  Sometimes I’ll bring two bodies to an engagement shoot, but usually not.  Since they wanted some night shots, I had Jonathan go rent a tripod… and while he was at it, I had him rent 24mm tilt shift too.    Might as well, right?  hehe.  I was excited to stretch myself and try something new.  It’s a lot more tiring to run around with tripods and off camera flashes.  But we had so much fun and finally put our pocket wizards to good use!

As we waited for sun to set, I got some of my standard shots.    Aren’t they beautiful??

The following shot is so much easier w/ a tripod!!  All my previous versions were all hand held!

The above was taken with my 24L and the below was taken with the 24 TS.

And then it was finally dark!  Even though we were using flashes, I still wanted a softness to the photos.   I like how they turned out!

Thanks Diane & Eric for all your patience as we ran around & waited for sun to set!  It was so much fun hanging out and I’m so excited to travel up north later this month for your wedding on Santana Row!

Steve proposed to Desiree up in the beautiful Hollywood Hills, overlooking the entire Los Angeles.  When it came time to finding a spot to do engagement photos, the Hollywood Hills was an obvious!   I love these two!  They are both so much fun and so loving.  Coincidentally, I dormed with Desiree back in our freshman year in college, and Steve happens to be best friends with one of my best friends from high school (which we didn’t know until our consultation).  I love what a small world this is!

He put a flower in her hair!  aww, reminds me of the Jason Mraz song, Lucky.  Which I think describes them both very well too.  I love the light in the next photo on the right.  Gotta love sunset in LA!

I love this next photo.  They are so cute & adorable together.

LOVE the light!  The light is almost as gorgeous as them.

I can’t wait for your big day!