Leanne's and Nifae's Engagement Photo Session

When Leanne reached out to me to shoot their engagement photos, she said she was completely open to any ideas as far as theme, location, and outfits. Not too long after, I started scouting for locations to shoot at. In the last minute, I remembered telling myself that, for my next engagement photo shoot, I would love to shoot at Pigeon Point Lighthouse in Pescadero...and so we did!

After extensively planning for the day of the shoot, I suggested that we leave Hayward just in time to be at the location before sunset. We arrived a bit too early at the location that the sun was still too high for my liking. However, I did not want to waste any precious time and started working around the harsh lighting. We ended up test shooting at the cliff that I want to take sunset photos at that surprisingly resulted in really beautiful shots regardless of the harsh lighting from the sun.

After figuring out how to work around the harsh lighting, I suggested shooting on a meadow of yellow flowers nearby which resulted in really joyful wide shots and closeups!

Still waiting for the "golden hour," I roamed around the location and found this very rustic looking building. I thought it served two purposes: it could be a nice background and could provide shade from the harsh sun that would allow for evenly lit photos. I took a few more wide shots and closeups. I also thought this would be the best time to take macro photos of Leanne's engagement ring!

Finally, the golden hour arrived! We immediately went back to the spot on the cliff to get the shots that I had planned for. I utilized the Brenizer Method to get ultra-high resolution photos of the couple in a panoramic sunset shot of the cliff by the ocean. Also, it would be silly of me not to shoot a few semi-silhouetted shots of the lovebirds against the beautiful sunset.