When you think of Orange County what’s the first thing to come to mind?? BEACH, right?!?! Seriously, what would this place even be without its cliffs, rocks, and breathtaking blues? A trip to the OC would be a total failure without a trip—or two or ten—to our crazy breathtaking shores. Ok, yes, I may be argued that in fact the number one attraction here is Disney Land. And I won’t complain in the least if that’s your thought process as over half the families who come to me do so during their week long trip to Disney! BUT as many days as they spend with Mickey their mouth always drops just a bit when they step on our Pacific land.
When we first moved to the OC we spent our every last spare minute on the sand. And I every last click of my shutter. My car was perpetually one large sandbox and my trunk filled to stock with shovels, buckets, and extra towels. Because even on the days we were just going to “hang out” one of my kids still did not fail to get soaked. ;)
I come to the beach so often to shoot now that I actually rarely take my own kids here. But still my car is one large sandbox as (little secret) I LOVE to shoot right there in that magical number one salty beauty. And I just love how fitting it all is, how things really do seem to run full circle. I get asked to shoot at the beach almost exclusively these days. The very place where I first learned all the ins and outs of photography. The place that always brought us peace at the end of a long day.
Winter usually means we run more from the water, getting little more than our feet wet. Not the case when it comes to my favorite kind of people though—Canadians. It was 50 degrees with winds 19 miles per hour. For us local OC folks, that is simply polar vortex terms. ;-) But they had just been in negative 40 windchills the week before. “It’s not too bad out!” they told me, and made all my water loving dreams come true.
I’ve been starting to do more and more couples shoots over the past year and YOU GUYS!! This genre I used to be so crazy intimidated by is becoming one of my very favorites! Still though, it doesn’t make me want to do any weddings yet. ;-) Sticking to romantic sunsets for now!
