Pleasanton Maternity Photography (Margarita & Devan)

Margarita and Devan are HAVING A BABY!!!! We were there when they got engaged, got married, celebrated their first anniversary, and now, as they prepare for the birth of their first child, named in honor of Margarita's brother. Margarita did all of the styling of this session herself! Didn't she do an amazing job? Just about everything you see here are things pulled out of the baby's nursery!
Here's part one!

New Staff!

I've been hinting and chatting about it for a few months now and the time has come to introduce you to our new staff members!

As we enter our SEVENTH wedding season, and I struggle, once again to keep up with correspondence, paper work, master discs and all of the other office tasks that it takes to keep a business running, I am glad to say that this year, I am not taking on this battle alone!

For a long time, I have struggled with whether this career is right for me because there are some aspects of this job that I flat out hate simply because I struggle with them so much. In fact, under the "FAQ" tab, I even wrote, "I suck," at these particular job skills. It's not so much that I actually suck at them, or don't know how to do them. It's just that I am so incredibly busy with the main, most important aspects of this job (like, taking pictures...) that I don't have time to keep everything... well... well-greased and oiled.

I was talking to the owner of Sugar & Spice Specialty Desserts a few weeks back and she said something along the lines of (you should hire her for your wedding by the way. They rock.) she's not an accountant, she's not an office manager; she's a baker, she's a pastry chef, so how can she be an expert accountant when she is an dazzlingly expert pastry chef? And that is exactly right! My job title here is not "Office Manager." It's "Lead Photographer." I need someone to help me do those tasks. When I worked for a law firm, and worked as a court runner, or an office assistant, I could do all that stuff, and rocked at it. But that's because that's what my whole job was. My job wasn't 100 hours a week of editing images, corresponding with clients, vendors and editors, working on websites, blogging and a million other things, and then 20 additional hours of office work on top of that. (Or more.) You can't do it all.

So here we are! After seven years, I have finally unclenched my sweaty little paws off the door handle and let someone help me. (Which about killed me, but they about broke my door down, so what could I do? :)

Please meet the new members of my staff!

First, Victoria our intern was hired last October. Victoria is local to our Sacramento, California office and has helped get all of our paperwork here in order. She organized stuff going back to 2008! (And there's still more to do... COUGH, COUGH.) Victoria is an undergraduate student and after spending a year living in Germany, plans to teach English to German students after she graduates. In the meantime, she's putting her organization skills to use! Victoria will also be available to help out at shoots and weddings in the greater Sacramento/Northern California area. If you would like to have an extra hand at the wedding, or at your shoot, let us know and we'll see if it can be arranged. Please meet Victoria!




I am next so pleased to introduce you to Kristin Peterson, our official Office Manager. Kristin and I met each other almost 15 years ago, while we were still in high school. I was the "weird girl" who brought a newborn kitten to our zero period math class and fed it with a bottle... in the middle of geometry. Ahem... Kristin was the semi-willing subject when I first took Photo, and my pen-pal when she went off to college in Idaho and I to college in Northern California. I was horrified when she really left me to get married in 2003, and sought revenge by backpacking through Europe while she settled down to have babies. :)

We reconnected when she hired me to shoot her trash the dress session (while we locked her children in their family van... screaming their heads off... beautiful memories of our reunion! lol)


And from there, Kristin started helping with the business. As I started traveling to Utah for work, she started helping on shoots, entertaining children, fixing dresses, second shooting, helping to package up master discs or whatever else I needed.
(Kristin got this of me shooting in Utah.)

(That is Kristin 5 months pregnant pulling one of my clients out of the snow up at Sundance, yes, with one of my cameras in hand!)

I just don't know why it took us so long to realize she could work for me remotely! About a month ago, we finally caught on, and I hired her! Kristin will now be working as my Office Manager from her home in Utah and is now handling all incoming paperwork, retainers, new clients, sending contracts out (as some of you have already heard from her!), and will soon begin working on master discs! I've been shipping out supplies to her for the last month and will be delivering a TB external drive to her with client images in a couple of weeks... Then, the onslaught of outgoing mail should begin!

Meet Kristin!



Kristin will be reachable at her office mail: peterson_kv@yahoo.com

You can also shop her Etsy shop, Posies & Polka Dots, HERE. Kristin supplied the "Happy Birthday" banner for baby Johnna (the Here comes the Sun baby) and I know she would be happy to make one for you too, if you just ask!

Donations can still be made to the Here Comes the Sun family at any time by clicking on the following link. An education fund has been set up in honor of their daddy to help them prepare for their future. Please share the links with family and friends. They have a long road ahead of them.


Donate to the JPM Kids Memorial Fund by utilizing the PayPal button below!

Couples Portraits (Oakland LDS Wedding)

Just a few more sweet ones from Adriana & Austin's couple's portraits on their wedding day at the Oakland Temple. See their other posts HERE.

For family and friends of the couple only, feel free to post on your blog or facebook, but please do not crop or remove watermarks and be sure to include a link back to our website!




Lovely, aren't they? :)

San Francisco & Presidio Engagement (Elizabeth & Matt)

I have mentioned to Elizabeth a few times now that she always seems to catch me when I feel like a hot mess. Julie, one of my brides from last year (the one published in Our Wedding Magazine) seemed to be the one who was always busting me with my proverbial pants down last year.

This year, Elizabeth seems to be stepping into Julie's pretty little shoes.

It started simple enough, you know, a little behind on email here or there. Not being able to schedule this session during my peak season. (But, it was like, peak season!) And then the weird stuff started. Like, you can schedule an appointment on that day, but I might have to drop everything and drive or fly to Utah to shoot the birth of these twins at a moment's notice and either cancel on you or run suddenly out of the room. Or, I had to park behind two guys who I swear were stuffing a body in the trunk wrapped in an army bag before I came up to see you and I'm a little weirded out...

Then when we started trying to schedule the engagement session, my main computer's motherboard decided to die (at the ripe old age of six months) and I was about to leave for just about a month of traveling and shooting and would almost be completely unable to work or communicate unless I manage to figure out how to stuff a full size computer monitor into my carry on baggage at the airport so I could use my back up computer, which is another broken laptop with a screen that doesn't work. (The system board on this one is dead. It's not the integrater or whatever that $30 part was we replaced in it.) Excellent.

We made it through that, and it was time for the engagement session. I was so pleased with myself. I had everything charged and ready to go, bags packed and I was going to prove to myself that I was not a hot mess after all. I just wanted to touch up my roots before I went to bed. (Being a REAL red head I didn't want Liz to see me going all fakey with my real Auburn roots showing!) So I touch up, stick a towel on my head, and as I'm about to hop into bed, decide to do a quick blow dry.

That's when I realized I was now Bozo the Clown's new sidekick.

F@*$!

APPARENTLY, I grabbed the wrong unlabeled bottle I had left laying around my bathroom and my roots were now FLAMING ORANGE with GIANT SPLOTCHES in RANDOM PLACES all over my FREAKING HEAD. I looked like I had tiger stripes.

HOT MESS, HOT MESS, HOT MESS.

It is now 2am. I have to leave here at 5am. Do I go to the session and laugh it off or do I run to the 24 hour WalMart and try and dye it out?

I picked door number 2.

When I got out of the shower the SECOND time, my entire head was orangier than Carrot-Top. AND I HAD USED DARK BROWN DYE.

I cried.

But, I guess it was some kind of optical illusion or reflection or dye on my scalp or something because when I blow dried it, it turned brown.

PHEW.

So I went to bed at 430am. Of course I was too anxious to sleep. I was up and out the door before 5am.

I got to the Financial District in SF early, and puttered around at a meter before deciding the three previous parking tickets I gotten in the city wouldn't be worth repeating and found a parking garage.

And the trouble began again.

I lost my keys IN THE CAR.

Seriously. (I know I had them to drive there!)

It took me 10 minutes to find them. (Between the seats.)

Then when I tried to take the elevator the 3-4 floors up to the street level I came up in the middle of the Hilton. What Hilton? Where the heck am I? I look out the street and it's like, China Town out there! What is this, the Twilght Zone?! I'm also a level above the street! So I get back on the elevator and try to go down a level... and come out in another parking garage! A different one! I can't even walk to where I was before! So I talk the elevator again, and came up in a different part of the hotel! Now I am freaked out. I find my way out and the valet sends me down some back alley to get to where I was originally and I find Elizabeth and Matt, patiently waiting in the FREEZING COLD like the angels that they are, never complaining a bit! I was so embarrassed but they were such good sports! I felt terrible!

HOT MESS!

After we finished at that location, I went to go back to my car, and I did find it this time, but it still took 10 minutes to get back to it and then their payment machines weren't working and Elizabeth was teasing me if I was lost again! SEE! I am a hot mess!

BANG HEAD ON DESK!

By the way, I crossed another item off photographer life experience list! The gross and nasty section! Of course I have done lots of shooting near urine, kneeled in horse and cow manure, taken lots of pictures with naked people in the background (Baker Beach you know.... sooo many hours of editing to get that out), had a baby spit up into it's mother's mouth while she was playing "airplane" with it... Well during this session, we got to shoot near vomit! Excellent! LOL

Hot mess! Hot mess! Hot Mess!

At least the pictures came out awesome, and these guys are so pretty you're just not going to be able to stand it and you're going to forget all about all that embarrassing stuff I just told you about myself. :) Elizabeth and Matt will be marrying in Tahoe in March. Yay! Congratulations! They are having a pretty green wedding I hear too (their invitations are made of LEAVES and BARK or something!) so look for more from them soon!

Reston Newborn Photographer (Baby Conner Ray is here!)

When I was in Washington shooting Ben and Sarah's wedding, I of course got to see my old clients Nicki and Dustin! (Nicki just so happens to be Sarah's big sister!) I shot Nicki and Dustin's Groomals, Wedding and Trash the Dress sessions all in and around the greater Washington DC area in 2010 and 2011. When we shot her Trash the Dress session right around her one year anniversary Sarah & Nicki's other sister, Jessica's wedding last May, Nicki had a big surprise to reveal- she was expecting a baby!

Conner Ray made his arrival just a few weeks before Sarah's wedding and I was so honored as to be the one to shoot his newborn portraits in their home in Reston, Virgina! Even though he was a little older than the infants I usually photograph, he was a TOTAL champ and slept through all the important parts and we got some cute awake portraits too. He didn't fuss at all and was a perfect little angel! We are so happy to have you Conner! (And your Mommy and Daddy are MADLY in love with you! :)















Doesn't he look like he is smiling in the first yawn? Tee-hee!

Ben & Sarah's Washington DC Temple Wedding Film (Strawberry Swing)

As I have been working on this the last few days, I have thought most of all about was how much more meaningful and fun this was to shoot since I actually know the bride, Sarah.

I first met her at my friend's wedding 9 years ago. That means she was 10 years old! I don't really remember her, but I can [count on my fingers] do the math. :) I met her again at my bride Nicki's wedding 18 months ago, again last spring at sister Jessica's wedding (Sarah helped me with my cameras!)... and now, just two days before her own wedding day. Mere months after she had declared to me it would be "at least" 4-5 years before she would get married. :D

It was a total delight and pleasure to shoot for someone I knew and who I could clearly see was in love. I love all my clients, but getting to know someone, even just a little bit over time gets you emotionally invested and I so appreciate that. It doesn't just make my job easier, it makes it FUN. I still just can't believe my time with the Shepherd family is over!

Congrats to Sarah and Ben. For Time and all Eternity!

Did you know we JUST hit the 800 fan mark on our Facebook Fan Page?! We are hoping to hit the 1,000 mark by my birthday! It's coming up fast! Come on over, and tell your friends and family too! It's a RACE TO THE END! (It's one of those nasty, almost-end-of-time birthdays too, yelch. lol)

Fan up right HERE!