Keith and Leslie are expecting their fourth child in June. This time they decided not to find out if they would be having a boy or girl. Since they already have one or more of each – Steve (7), Miles (4) and Aubriella (2) – this one’s all about the surprise. Although four children might sound like a lot of work, I can see why this couple enjoys a larger family; they simply take it all in their stride. Inevitably kids will wander in and around during the session while you’re focused on other family members. Yet,  I was amazed…

Lindia is a friend and neighbor. We have gotten to know each other while sharing a walking group on Mondays and our daughters play together. Up here in our close-knit community of Pollock Pines, when someone is struggling, we all feel it and gather to do whatever it is we can do to help. So, when I learned that Lindia had been diagnosed with breast cancer, I immediately knew it was time to schedule a shoot – some time to capture her fighting spirit and the love and support of her family as she begins treatment. I originally had in…

Alright, I gotta say it: I thought I was done with baby-making but this little guy might just have changed my mind. (Just kidding, Jeff. Just kidding.) But seriously… Devan is devastatingly cute. I met up with him and his mom and dad, Kim and Sean, at East Portal Park in Sacramento for the latest session in their baby package. You may remember Kim and Sean’s wedding at Donner Lake in 2012 and one of my favorite engagement sessions was paddle-boarding with them on Lake Tahoe the prior July. It’s great to see them now as parents and they’re pretty…

Over the holidays last year, my office assistant, Rita’s, son, Ricky, built bottle cap snowmen and raised $2,300 for a wonderful local family.  You see, Shawna Huckaby’s eldest son, Ben, was diagnosed with cancer in July of last year and they have spent the best part of the last year undergoing treatments to fight it. Ben was supposed to be in Ricky’s class but has been unable to attend school due to the possibility of contracting a virus. This is a small community and when someone is in-need, people rally together. For my part, I offered the family a shoot last…

Mike and Leslie are our neighbors. Lucky me, they are so wonderful and kind. Mike is the guy who you can rely on to be at the end of the road in every snow storm, shrinking the burm from the plow with his shovel while Leslie is the kind neighbor who would drop anything for anyone at any time. They both helped us out on several occasions when our girls were younger and, when my assistant Jerri (who was also their daughter’s best friend) faced leaving her friends behind because her family was moving to Montana in her Senior year,…

You may have heard me mention the name Ashlynn in countless posts past but this is the first time you’ll have ever seen her in front of the camera, well, not including her senior photographs that I captured several years back. Ashlynn is my assistant and just one of the sweetest girls I know. This past summer, Ashlynn’s boyfriend, Sam, left for college while Ashlynn stayed behind here in California. Long distance relationships are hard at the best of times but, if you can remember the raw intensity of your first love, you can probably get some measure of how…

My friends, Jill and Mike, had a baby! Jill has been a friend of mine for a long time and so I was honored to get to photograph her and her daughters, Piper (born on December 29) and Meadow, 8, at my home this month. It’s so wonderful to look at the images after a newborn session like this and fall in love with them. Although newborns can be some of the most fun subjects to shoot – the smell, the tiny hands, the sweet expressions – they can also be some of the most tricky. Just when you get…

At the end of last year I got the opportunity to photograph a couple of the trainers at Action Potential Personal Training Studio in Pollock Pines, Jessica Miller and Amy Teel. Both are my friends and I’m excited to see this business taking good shape up here in our mountain town. Jessica Miller moved her business up here this past summer from Placerville in order to be closer to her family and to take advantage of a larger and more flexible space. She picked a beautiful location in the old school house where many businesses working in arts and physical fitness…

What a fantastically fun way to close out the year! My last wedding of 2013 was for Jill and Matthew, who were blessed with a beautiful blue-sky day at the Wedgewood Sequoia. I knew that this couple and I would be a perfect match when Jill sent me this email earlier in the year: “”Both my fiancé and I loved how your photography was really about the couple. Other photographers often made nice or artsy pictures that didn’t seem to be about the people.”  That is absolutely what I’m all about – emotions, moments, relationships and, of course, beautiful light.…

I’ve been taking photographs since the age of 10 starting with a 110 instamatic camera, 24 photos per roll. In my post college and San Francisco days I embarked into a career as a recording engineering for about 13 years, even built a fairly successful one, Dance Home Sound, in an empty loft in Emeryville. I remember asking my Dad if he would loan me some money for the studio- to help get it going. Certainly, if he had been open to this idea (which he wasn’t), it would have required some sort of chart and analysis on what the…

Oh my Gosh, what a fun wedding this was! It was slightly unconventional, a little goofy, simple and also laid-back – all of which matched Calli and Derrick’s personalities so well.

As a photographer who loves to capture the emotional story of life’s milestones, you can’t get anything more significant or emotional than photographing a birth. From the effort of mom to bring her baby into the world, to the loving support of family, and capturing the first moments as baby meets it’s new world… it’s truly a magical time. Which is why I was honored to have the opportunity to tell the story of Stevie-Lynn’s birth. Mom, Amanda, has watched my children numerous times. She is also a photographer and I knew how much she would appreciate the documentation of…