Well, hello there. Let me just start by staying this styled shoot is nothing like I imagined it would be… but that seems to be the theme for 2020, doesn’t it? For starters, it definitely didn’t involve me being on the other side of the camera!

Last winter we moved from the Bay Area to Sacramento and during this time I took a few (much needed) months off from shooting. January marked three months of settling into our new Sacramento digs and I was anxious to dust my cameras off and get back to creating. One of the biggest draws of moving to Sac was being closer to the mountains and beautiful lakes. I haven’t had too many opportunities to shoot in the snow, so when one of my past couples happened to be in Tahoe the same time as me I was STOKED to have a fun little shoot. Unfortunately the weather gods were not on our side and the shoot didn’t work out. HOWEVER, Thalia was kind enough to let me borrow her beautiful Reformation dress that she wore at her reception to use for a future shoot :)

I reached out to local vendors Fig & Vine and Vanessa Luna Makeup to see if they’d like to collab on a styled bridal shoot and everyone was in! So, to sum it up I had the model, I had the dress, the flowers, and the makeup all ready to go and then this lil ol’ pandemic happened. Who woulda thunk? We have been in isolation for almost 6 weeks now, and as we all plan to continue to respect the social gathering restrictions, all hopes of our styled shoot have been dashed.

So with plenty of time to wallow at home, I came up with the idea of just going ahead with it anyway. I had all the key components apart from the model… I reached out to a few friends to ask their opinion and they encouraged me to just hit that self-timer, girl! If the photos were terrible I didn’t have to post them… and also ALL I HAVE IS TIME. True that.

I reached out to Vanessa with my new plan and she was onboard! I sent her a few unsettling closeups of my face and all the makeup I had on deck. Being the angel that she is, she walked me through a step-by-step of how to do this perfect bronzed, smokey makeup LEWK. Obviously not even close to anything she would’ve created, but we do what we can, ya know?

Paulina made me this stunning, colorful bouquet and boutonniere, and in order to keep it contact-less I just picked it up from her porch. I’m yet to even meet this lady and she took the time out of her day and resources to make this for me - how amazing is that?

Okay so, self-portraits are SUPER HARD, y’all! I turned our gym/spare bedroom into this little studio and got to work. These are messy and unorganized and not framed perfectly, and in some you can even see my phone or the remote (oops), but it felt so good to create and that’s what matters. My mental health has been such a rollercoaster these last few weeks and to focus on my craft again was such a nice little reset.

Paulina, Thalia, Vanessa: I’m so, so grateful for you ladies. Your contribution to my little quarantine shoot means more than you know <3