Family Portraits - Davis Arboretum

I recently had the opportunity to shoot the family portraits of a former coworker of mine. We met in the Davis Arboretum and had a great time. While I of course love taking anyone’s photo, it’s always the most special to me when I have a personal connection. This was my first opportunity to meet and hang out with baby Liam, and what a treat that was!

In the summer, the ideal lighting and shooting window is quite late, usually around 7pm. This was after baby Liam’s bedtime, so we had to push the photoshoot quite a bit earlier than what would be my photographical “ideal”. Thankfully the Arboretum has lots of shade, and opportunities to find smooth lighting and hide from the bright glaring overhead sun.

Liam was an absolute joy to photograph and has definitely spoiled me on babies for the next long while. This 9 month old didn’t cry or become fussy a single time during our shoot! He smiled, laughed, and even looked into the camera like a pro! He really made my job easy.

Besides hitting up the main lawn area of the Arboretum, we also experimented a bit in front of the UC Davis Art Building. I’ll definitely want to try this location again! I really liked the interesting colors of the pillars and blue building, but the environment definitely also challenged my editing skills, as the orange pillars really colored everyone’s skin a bizarre and bright orange, which took a lot of experimenting in Lightroom to correct. I really like opportunities like that though to grow, not just as a photographer, but also as an editor, which of course is over half of the job of a photographer anyways.