Afternoon Lakeside Couples Session

Carpenter and Charles were one of the first couples I’ve worked with at the start of this business. Truly, they are the first couple that, leading up to our session, told me that they trusted me and were willing to try anything I thought might be fun. (A topic I’ve talked about before over here).

Flash forward to a year later. We’ve kept up over Instagram stories & DMs (Carpenter is one of the funniest people I know), she’s sent me snaps of pictures from our first session that she’s framed and keeps on her desk at work, and we have hyped each other up over life events.

Even though I knew them both and had professionally grown so much since they’d last seen me in action, before this session, I found myself getting so nervous, wondering if they’d be let down after all of this build up.

My sometimes anxious mind is so often glad to be wrong. Starting our session was seamless, easy, fun. I had forgotten: the trust was already there. I didn’t have to think about having a good time – it just happened.

And really, building trust with your photographer matters so much in getting pictures that genuinely feel like you. It’s why so many photographers (myself included) encourage having an engagement session together before your wedding. It’s because the second time around in front of the camera, there’s fewer barriers, and it’s exponentially easier to relax and be yourselves.

This time around, I was able to build on how playful they are together and try out a few new things that resulted in shots that most felt like “them.”

When I sent over their gallery, Carpenter mentioned a few things that made me feel like the actual embodiment of the praise-hands emoji 🙌, such as starting a sentence with “True life, one of the reasons we love you so much (there are a lot, this is just one)…

But my favorite feedback is from Charles, substantially less verbose than Carpenter, who said, “Take my money, and schedule us for next year.”

girl playfully wrapped around her husband in a forestcouple in fall attire laughing next to a lakefun couple standing and laughing in a wooded drivewayportrait of couple smiling next to lake in the east baycouple kissing in front of a fall backdrop in the east bayplayful and romantic moment of a couple sharing a kiss on the cheekmarried couple in front of an outdoor fall backdropportrait of couple having fun next to lake in the east bayplayful portrait from a fall session outdoorscandid portrait of a couple snuggled next to a lake in oaklandintimate portrait of a couple sharing a kiss on a picnic blanket

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