I still get chills when I think about this early morning session with Natalie & Foster! I’ll be honest, I’m reaaaally not a morning person. So chances are, if I book a sunrise session I force myself to ignore the fact that it obviously requires me to wake up before the sun hahah. Don’t get me wrong though, it’s always SO worth it once I get to see the sun come up & am reminded of how quiet everything is being up that early.

For Natalie & Foster’s engagement session, we lucked out with the softest light all morning & a cloudy sky that made the ocean water even more turquoise than usual. We shot these photos at San Onofre Beach at Camp Pendleton which is only accessible through the base for military personnel & their guests. So, unless you or the people you’re shooting with happen to have military access, here’s an alternative beach that’s accessible to all civilians right down the road from San Onofre. But back to sharing more about this perfect morning! This spot was even more special because it’s where Foster had proposed to Natalie! These two are one of my wedding couples later this year so they reached out scheduling an engagement session when they heard I was going to be in their area back in December!

We started off shooting on the beach & running around in the sand! This was one of the first galleries where I truly let myself edit around mother nature’s colors instead of forcing my previously-desired warm tones into the picture where they didn’t really belong. The colors that you see in these images are truly what it looked like on this chilly December morning! And I love that so much. The sky was almost as blue as the ocean!

After we played around on the beach for a bit, they changed outfits and we spent the last portion of their session shooting in their van! Natalie & Foster built out this perfect blue sprinter van during the pandemic! They said they’ve spent so much time in it that it feels like home, so we made sure to incorporate those feelings into the images. We documented them doing things that they’d normally do on any given morning spent waking up in their van. They made coffee, sat with the cargo doors wide open & listened to the waves crash on the beach. I was so stoked to finally fulfill my dream of shooting a sweet couple doing their thing in their sprinter van hahah.

After we finished shooting, they invited me to stay for breakfast & Foster cooked us scrambled eggs! :’) I’m not sure if I’m biased because they were cooked in a cozy little van but this was the best breakfast I’ve had in a hot minute hahah.

I try to create gifs during all of my sessions & the ones I made from this morning are some of my very favorites to date. Check them out on my instagram post here and if this post has convinced you to book a fun session with your person where you can completely be yourselves, head over to my contact form! I loved getting to know these two and their personalities a bit better & I left their session feeling even more excited to be a part of their wedding in July.