Its been so long since I blogged I had a hard time remembering the URL to login... then an even tougher time remembering my username and password. I apologize.

Last week I went to New York for a shoot and a few meetings. I absolutely love it there. The city, the weather, and most of all... the people. I hear from a lot of people that Orange County has a community among photographers that doesn't happen in the rest of the country. Every time I'm in New York I'm reminded of how wrong that statement is. I stayed with my good friend and amazing photographer Carlos Andres Varela while I was there and EVERY night he took me out and we had the best time hanging out with our other good photographer friends Mel Barlow, Jason Groupp, Allan Zepeda, Lindsey Thorne, Shelly Kroeger, Angelica Glass and my favorite photo editor Rebecca Crumley. There are awesome photographers and an amazing community in NYC and I'm so happy be a small part of it and to call them my friends.

On to the real reason for the post... On Wednesday I met my new BFFs Brett and Claire in Manhattan last week to shoot some portraits of them. They wanted some shots of their first trip to the city. Brett is an awesome wedding photographer from Oklahoma. Check out his work. We had a blast running around the city on what was the most perfect day I've experienced in a long time.

Ok, on to the images.

We started down in the alleys in China Town.

Then we headed up to SoHo. They wanted some paparazzi style images like these from last time I was in New york.

Then we caught the subway and headed up to Madison Square Park in the Flat Iron District.

We ended the shoot in Central Park.

New York is my favorite place in the world to shoot. I'm going to be back there the first week of May. If anyone else wants a shoot there shoot me an email!

You might remember Jen and Andrew... I shot their engagement images in New York and their wedding last year.

They recently had a little girl, Sofia. While we were in Manhattan recently they asked if I'd shooting some family pictures of them. We went up to the Cloisters on the Upper West Side and shot for a little while. Here are a few images of their beautiful family!

And a few of the happy couple. It was great seeing you guys!

Today I had an interesting shoot... a proposal. I followed the couple around SoHo taking pictures of them all while hiding behind plants, cars, people... etc. It was one of the most difficult shoots of my life. How do you stay close enough to shoot the couple for an hour and a half, yet not be seen? Well, Muhammed, the boyfriend, thought I was successful in not being seen but I'm not so sure. I thought I was found out in the first 10 minutes.

He never actually proposed... at least while I was there. Either he was too nervous and kept putting it off or he always intended to do it later and wanted to just get some shots of them together on the day he proposed. Whatever the case, it was cool to shoot something so different from what I normally shoot.

These images will obviously look different than usual. I had no control over any of the circumstances. Not the location, the light, the couple, backgrounds, angles... in most instances I was handicapped by one or all of these things but in any case it was a fun shoot and I think I got some cool images.

I shot Grace and Phil's engagement session down in Santa Monica and found one of my new favorite spots. Check out the little white house. I felt like I was back in South Carolina. So sweet. Here are a few of my faves.

Last week I shot Thanh and Nguyen. They know ahead of time that we're not going to have a lot of time on the day of the wedding so we scheduled a couple of hours to make sure we had some great stuff of them alone so we can be a little more relaxed when the day comes. We went to Laguna Beach and had a great time and were blessed with incredible light. Here are a few favorites!

After coming home from the Mammoth men trip and shooting two weddings this weekend, I'm just beginning to dig myself out of the mountain of work that piled up while I was gone.

A couple of weeks ago I shot Katherine and Jim's engagement pictures in Seal beach and had the best time. After the shoot they took me to Beachwood BBQ, right on Main St. It was awesome. If you're ever in the area you need to check it out. Make sure to try to Mac and Cheese if you go... its off the hook.

At the end of the shoot we were on the pier and I looked down to see these surfers just waiting to catch the last wave of the day back in. I don't know why but I really like this image.

A few weeks ago I shot Jen and Ryan's engagement pictures. The day they picked seemed to be the first overcast day in months. I assured them it would be okay and we went out to one of my favorite new secret spots. We had a great time rolling around in the grass, hoping we weren't going to get attacked by mountain lions which is apparently a real possibility out in the OC wilderness. We made it out alive and I think we got some really great images... I just love them.