Lifestyle Family Photographer | Shooting a Shooter | Napa Family Photographer

My favorite thing to do is photograph people just living life, documenting the little things in their daily lives.  Turns out for most people, these little things are loaded with meaning. Think of my job as sort of a visual journal, a way to go back and look at an image and remember what was going on that day.  Really, telling a story, the story of you.  Someone said to me recently that they felt that my photographs felt true and full of life.  The images they saw made them want to be there, where ever that was.  It almost made me cry.  I just about floated away from that meeting.  How nice.  It’s what I hope for whenever I pick up my camera and set out to photograph my sessions, that I will tell a story.  That I will be that fly on the wall, unobtrusive and watching the story unfold and tell it in a way that will be remembered always.

That leads me to this session with someone who knows what I’m talking about.  Please meet my friend,  Jennifer Chaney, photographer extraordinaire  from the East Bay. Jennifer invited me in to capture some very sweet and meaningful moments in her life.  She has such a sweet family!  There’s ‘the crazies’, I mean the kids, the handsome husband and a gigantic dog (who managed to not be in any of these shots, whoops!).   It was fast paced and so much fun.

Thanks for the fun and the laughs Jen, can’t wait ’til next time.


In Your Eyes | Napa Children’s Photographer | Napa Black and White Photographer

I’m a photographer, I love people, I photograph people.  I’m also known as a children’s photographer and I love that association.  I tend to chatter a lot, and I’m trying not to here.  I want this to be brief and about the art.  The art of children, the art of photography, the art of really seeing someone.  Seeing them whether you’re with them for a number of hours, minutes, days.  Do you see them?  I was with this lovely little person last week photographing her expectant mother, and we’ll get to that in a few weeks when I’ve  had time to look it over, edit, etc.  But tonight, I just wanted to share this beautiful little person, this moment caught right here.  We were just goofing off when I took this image and it was a total distraction tactic on my part to get her to cooperate with what we were about to do next with her momma.  It was brief and it was beautiful.  You know what they say, life is what happens when you’re making plans.  As someone who has been photographing for a long time now, I know what I’m doing, I know that what I cherish most in shooting is the moments in between moments.  The in between places is where’s it’s at for me.  Ask anybody who’s worked with me, that’s where the magic is and that’s where I go.

Get lost in the magic that is this precious child.  She’s in her moment.  They’re fleeting and we’d better hang on or we’ll miss them.  Miss them as photographers, but most importantly as parents and people who appreciate the magic that is the child.  And, I mean no matter the age.  Hang on guys, enjoy it all.

‘In your eyes
the light the heat
in your eyes
I am complete
in your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
in your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
in your eyes
oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light
the heat I see in your eyes’

Peter Gabriel

| Sydney! | Napa Senior Photographer |

Hey, this is Syd.  Isn’t she just the sweetest young lady you’ve ever seen?  I’m a little partial as I’ve known her mom for a very long time.  I was lucky enough to photograph Syd for her senior pictures.  We had a great time hanging out, her mom in the background cracking us all up, ha, ha!  Turns out Syd is going to France too.  I can’t believe we’re both going to be in the same areas, but flip flopped timing.  When I’m in Paris, she’s near Toulouse, and vice versa.  Oh well. She’s touring with her choir from high school.  What an opportunity.  She’s a great student, an awesome athlete (you should meet her mom!), and just a very special and sweet girl.

Syd, I love you honey.