Anna and Brett and I took some Germany football jerseys and beer to China Beach and climbed on the rocks at sunset for their San Francisco engagement session.
They met in San Francisco while watching a World Cup game as they cheered on their favourite team. It was windy but bright, sunny, and a truly picturesque view; a few other photos from this session feature the Golden Gate Bridge prominently in the background. I’m delighted to be flying to Berlin next summer with them to photograph their wedding. I’m also grateful that they were such good sports about rock climbing on the beach.
Here’s an image from Mitzi & Jake’s Rockridge engagement session in the Oakland hills a few years ago.
We shot around Rockridge, the neighborhood where I met my own beautiful wife, and then drove up to Skyline on a whim. That’s their car’s headlights through the fog in the background. It was cold, but the views were stunning and the atmosphere was electric.
Engagement sessions are tricky for me; my background is in newspaper photojournalism, and I pride myself on my documentary coverage of weddings. It’s hard for me to showcase my skills at capturing candid, honest moments at fundamentally posed engagement sessions, but it’s also an opportunity for me to explore graphic and artistic components of photography.
Also, some news: as of 8 days ago, I’m a father. Two weeks before that, I accepted a job on the product photography team at Stitch Fix Inc. I’m very excited to continue to photograph weddings; I’ll be taking fewer commissions each year so that I may focus more on my clients.
Pao-chen and Shashank are getting married today, and asked me to take some engagement photos before their wedding. Rain and travel got in the way and pushed the session back until Wednesday of this week – two days before their wedding – but we had a glorious time photographing at Crissy Field and the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre in San Francisco. I normally wouldn’t photograph in this direction during a Palace of Fine Arts engagement session, with the iconic architectural landmark behind the camera, but the light and the connection were perfect. I’m very much looking forward to documenting their day in San Ramon today – photos to come soon!