Diana & Michael | Memorial Stadium | Oski | UC Berkeley Campus | Engagement Session

Diana and Michael did their engagement session on Michael's birthday.  As a surprise to him, Diana got Oski (Berkeley's mascot) to come down to Memorial Stadium and shoot with us.  We love when people bring their favorite things to engagement sessions, such as hats, volley balls, accessories, pets, etc.  Oski turned out to be much more than a "prop".  He was actually quite a ham and really great at striking model poses!  We had a lot of fun working with him.  Thank you Oski! 

At first, something about Oski made me a little nervous.  He is famous around these parts and usually has a body guard, his two ears are fused into one (very strange), and he smells like an old man, a 67 year old man, to be exact.  But as we got to know him a little better, we warmed up to each other and then Oski tried to hit on Diana.  Oh Oski, you rascal- always flirting with the ladies.  It breaks my heart though, to see a huge smelly bear rejected. 

-Ingrid

 

As you can tell, we were having fun with this love triangle scenario.  It's not often we get to shoot three adults, one of which is the third wheel.  

Then we wandered around campus to find some cool places to shoot.  The lovely couple with great overcast lighting.

We asked Diana and Michael questions about themselves while shooting them.  This turned out to be great because we got such genuine expressions and found out funny tidbits about their relationship. 

I'm really looking forward to shooting their wedding because Diana and Michael are such natural down to earth people.  We also have a kajillion mutual friends and acquaintances!  

Tiffany & Kyle | UC Berkeley Campus | Engagement Session

We get a lot of requests to shoot on the UC Berkeley Campus.  Every time Jerry and I start a shoot there, we try our hardest to do something unique.  Luckily the Campus is peppered with interesting backdrops and strange "tree people" who we would encounter on a later shoot. 

This shoot was particularly easy because Kyle knows how to make Tiffany laugh.  They were so open to doing anything for the shot.  We asked them to do a running jump over us over and over again, to learn precariously over the edge of a tall stump, and hardest of all, for Kyle to imitate Tiffany's silly faces.  This proved more challenging than it sounds since Tiffany is remarkably dexterous at making faces!  It was so much fun working with you guys.  I'm excited to see your photo-wedding favors. 

-Ingrid 

Tiffany and Kyle wanted an image where we shot through stuff and they would be behind it.  We walked around campus looking for good places to do this, when we settled on this patch of tall grasses.  I later realized that this area is actually a dry retention pond for dirty run-off to collect and then be purified by the grasses.  MMM, gross, interesting...and pretty! 

This is Berkeley's Eucalyptus Grove.  The old guys who did the campus planning brought these over from Australia, hoping to make a good wind screen.  They didn't realize that later, these giants would come crashing down on neighboring buildings when they got too old.  Fun fact!

Relaxing on a log after their sprint through the forest. 

Finding interesting lighting is key.

And then making interesting lighting is another key when good lighting doesn't exist. 

Kyle working his charm on Tiffany.