I had an absolutely fabulous weekend. : ) Exhausting, but fabulous.
Bright and early Saturday morning, I started my day with a senior portrait shoot at the beach. The client this time around was actually my boss's daughter, Anna. So I was a little intimidated by that, especially since I know what a perfectionist my boss is. Anna was there with her mom, and both of them are super-nice, so we all soon relaxed and enjoyed ourselves.
I had a few obstacles I had to overcome, though... I had planned the shoot in the morning so that the light wouldn't be quite so harsh...or so I had thought. I had expected this area to be in mostly shade, since this area of beach was near the cliffs. Nope. No luck. So we were shooting in the blazing sunlight. Poor girl... half the time she had to stare directly that direction to get good shots. Luckily, we found a way to work with that, though... she'd look everywhere BUT at me, and then I'd tell her exactly when to look my way and snap a few quick shots before she got a chance to start squinting.
Another obstacle... there were a BUNCH of boats docked right offshore. So, rather than open ocean, my background was dotted with them. Still pretty, though.
But thirdly, the place was ALREADY crawling with people. Not just families, but there was an art class painting the scenery, and a few scuba divers right offshore. Sheesh!
The smaller area I had been planning to use just wasn't working. So we walked up the hill, out of Little Corona, and up the street and down the decline into Big Corona. Much better here. We finished the shoot with both Anna and myself getting a bit soggy... the ocean came up quickly and drenched us both from the knees down...and I still had my tennies on. ick. (I was carrying so much of the ocean in my shoes, I ended up having to drive home barefoot).
As we were leaving the beach, Anna realized that she was missing her cell phone. Yikes! Her mom used her own phone to call the number, hoping they would hear it ringing nearby...but instead, someone answered the phone! Turns out that it had been dropped in the sand at Little Corona. The phone had been passed off to a couple of people, and finally rested with this person... they made plans to meet up so the phone could be given back to Anna. Whew...that had been close.
I finished with Anna's photos around midnight last night, so I haven't had a chance to post any to my blog. But I promise I'll show those soon...
Continuing my weekend, on Saturday night I hooked up with a friend who wanted to get out of her house for a while... we caught the flick Marley and Me. It was pretty cute. I hadn't read the book, so I didn't know what to expect. Let's just say that I was a blubbering baby by the end of the movie... and now I want a puppy. (No, it's not actually gonna happen. But I still want one.)
Sunday was a loooooong day, but a good one. I had 2 photoshoots that kinda blended into one all-day one. Backstory... there is this group of people who have been friends for over 10 years now. But life happens, and they went in different directions. They still try to get together whenever possible, but it's difficult, especially since they live in different parts of California now, too. So when they got together this time around, they wanted me to do a session with them so that they'd have the pictures of them all together. I thought it was a great idea... and the instigators were actually previous clients of mine, so it made it that much easier, too.
There were 3 people in the morning shoot... we headed down to Big Corona since this beach meant something to them, and shot their photos there. From rock climbing to balancing on a skinny wall and climbing out on the jetty, it was a pretty active shoot for all of us. So by the time we were done, we were exhausted.
We went to BJ's for lunch and rested there awhile...the others who would be added in the afternoon shoot joined up with us there. (My husband joined us for lunch, too... he wasn't a part of the photoshoot, but he'd been friends with some of these people in high school before I'd ever even met them. So Susie invited him to join us.)
After a couple of hours at the restauant, we finally took off and headed out... our destination for this afternoon shoot was Old Town Tustin. it made for a FABULOUS backdrop, and I swear it is now one of my favorite places to take pictures... and I'll be using it again and again. I'll show the pictures as soon as I can... but to explain, this whole area just has an old feel to it. Brick buildings with vines up the sides. Old walls with paint chipping that they keep that way on purpose. Arches and posts and a gazebo (oh my). I was in heaven.
There were 6 people to coordinate for this shoot, so it got a bit tough at times. But it was a LOT of fun. We just wandered up and down the streets, stopping every few feet to take some photos. The group was very animated, and it was totally infectious. They were just so much fun to be around, and it totally came though in the photos.
Finally, we all ran out of energy and decided to call it quits. I headed home, EXHAUSTED!
But very, very happy!
