Opportune & Sam

Opportune and Sam have an anniversary coming up and to take some fun photos in their honor we went to Kenneth Hahn Park in Culver City. They were a lot of fun, very stylish, and we got some great shots. We started out in the picnic area, made our way to the Japanese Tea Garden, and finally looped around the beautiful, blue lake and waterfalls.











Cheers to the fabulous couple!

Do good anyway.

The Paradoxical Commandments
by Kent M Keith

I read these words of wisdom while waiting in line at a bagel shop in Brentwood. It was such an unexpected and cool place to see this clever piece of art.


1. People are illogical, unreasonable and self-centered. Love them anyway.

2. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.

3. If you are successful you win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.

4. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

5. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.

6. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.

7. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.

8. What you spend years building can be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.

9. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway.

10. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.

Lauren and John's Engagement Shoot

For their engagement shoot, Lauren and John took me to the beautiful Santa Barbara Botanical Garden, where they were engaged. Unfortunately, the recent fires in Santa Barbara reached several parts of the botanical garden, so some of the paths were closed off. But what we did see was lush and vibrant wildlife. I got to know this very sweet couple a little bit better. As you'll see, they share a lot of smiles and laughter together.







(Here's the laugh I told you about!)







Wedding photos are soon to come!

Crenshaw High Prom

Worthy wanted to capture some fun candid shots at home before heading off to the prom. They had a champagne party (Martinelli's style) to toast to their elegant evening, where friends and family came to see them off to the big night.

Here are a few shots before getting all dressed up. (Worthy is the gentleman on the top left.)


These two were friends of the group, and so photogenic!






Worthy's beautiful date got dolled up with a little help from friends and family. Her gorgeous dress was homemade!



I snuck in a few shots behind the scenes before the official grand entrance.





After much suspense, the two lovely couples made their entrance and the toasting began.







Then they were off to a magical night...

Kitties

This is more of a real blog post, I took these on my little digital camera. These cute little kittens are new to my grandparents' family. (The photos were taken a while ago now, so they're much bigger now, I'm sure!) Gracey (the gray kitten) and Callie (the calico cutie) are so playful and so soft! My grandpa was always a dog person so he was surprised when he really liked having the kittens around.

Essenza Spa - Website Photos

Essenza is a day and med spa on Sunset Blvd in West Hollywood, newly under the ownership of Kataneh. Kataneh is an entrepreneur who has done a great job giving new life to this elegant spa. The photos below are a sample from the shoot we did for the new website, which is now up, here! A handful of models came to the shoot to demonstrate some of the many services that Essenza provides - massage, makeup and eyelashes, chiropractic treatment, group events, spa and personal training, just to name a few.



Be sure to check out the site if you haven't already!

Triplets Audition for America's Next Top Model

These lovely triplets - Shauntea, Dashanea, and Jahquache - went to the open casting call in LA for America's Next Top Model last weekend and made it to the next audition in New York! They needed some great photos to take to the audition, so we went up into the hills at Mountaingate Road for their photo shoot. Their makeup looked gorgeous, done by the talented Nancy Lopez. And the beautiful lighting you'll see was aided by two fabulous ladies, Patience and Beatrice (thank you!). This shoot was a lot of fun and these are some of my favorites...

From left to right, this is Dashanea, Jahquache, and Shauntea. These beautiful triplets have very different personalities which really come through in their modeling and photos.


Shauntea's set.









Jahquache.









And Dashanae.










The group all together.







These girls were stunning and the shoot was a lot of fun. I think they have a great chance of making it!