When the bride-to-be and I are making plans for a double date (and doggie play date) by the end of her engagement session, I know she’s made the right choice by hiring me.  Creating beautiful images is only a small part of what it takes to be an exceptional photographer.  Anyone who practices enough can do it, hence the surplus of Orange County wedding photographers…Building rapport with your subjects and creating beautiful, real, natural looking images is another story.  It has nothing to do with photography, and everything to do with relationship building and psychology.  I knew my Chapman University education would come in handy; thanks Dad!  Anyways, here’s some images from Kira and Colin’s downtown Laguna Beach engagement session!  They’ll be tying the knot in August at the beauteous Casa Romantica in San Clemente.

The smell of baking waffle cones was giving us all a serious gelato craving, mmmm!

I added a textured overlay post-production in Photoshop to add a little more interest to this image.  I kept it fairly subtle since there’s already several things going on in the background. 

Kira’s cute, red shoes were begging for a photo with the telephone booth…

Me gusta backlighting!  It’s especially flattering on Kira.

Awww!  Can’t you just see how much Colin adores his future wifey?!

I was busy setting my cameras, but luckily managed to capture this 1 shot at just the right moment…

Pretty background huh?  Too bad it’s directly next to a smelly dumpster, so I snapped a bunch of frames super fast and we got outta there!

The shaded sidewalks in downtown Laguna Beach are perfect for these kind of shots. 

Sorry Colin, had to blog this one!  What fun is an engagement session without at least 1 cheesy photo?