This session was extra special to me because Alexis and Joe are high school sweethearts I went to school with. They were a couple grades ahead of me but I remember seeing how in love they were, even back then. I hadn’t seen them in ten years or so when we met up at the beach in La Jolla to take family pictures of them and their two kids.
The tide was extremely high at Windansea beach this day, so much so that it was actually scaring the kids a bit! We made sure to take lots of pauses and watch the ocean so we wouldn’t get clapped by a wave.
I believe one of the sweetest, most honest ways to preserve a moment in time with a family is to let them exist and take photos of that. I lean heavily into a documentary style approach with all of my photo shoots, but especially with families. The truth of the matter is little kids don’t love being forced to stand still and smile for an hour straight (I’m not sure adults love doing this either, to be honest). It’s always my goal to make the experience enjoyable for everyone involved, including the kids.
Will we still get that Christmas card photo of everyone looking into the camera smiling? Of course. I know what grandma wants to see.
All in all it was such a beautiful experience to get to see the life these two created for themselves and their children so many years later.
Windansea is one of my favorite photo shoot spots in all of San Diego because of the way the sunset hits, every time. Even on overcast days this beach never misses. Because the tide was so high up this day, we also snuck over to the staircase on the Northside of the beach and took a few shots.
That’s another benefit to shooting at Windansea, between the rocks, the water, the stars, the alley way that leads to the ocean… there’s so much to work with. Even walking around in the surrounding neighborhood. There’s so much variety at this beach. I’ll be posting more from this session in a few days once I finish up editing, check it out on Instagram @emilydean.photography 🙂
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