Gianna

This past December my family and I were fortunate to get to visit my parents and family and beloved homeland along the central coast of California. Gianna and her mom caught wind of my visit to town and asked if I would be able to photograph Gianna for her High School senior photos. I had never photographed a senior session and was a little hesitant as I was taking advantage of this trip to the States to do an equipment upgrade. I was also changing my whole camera system and needed to learn the new system. They were very gracious and said they wanted to go ahead and work with me in my learning process.

Needless to say, I went into this session a bit nervous. Once I got into town and got my gear set up we were down to scheduling the session within two weeks time. Back to back storms were scheduled for the next two weeks. Gianna was on the surf cams checking out the coast (we were all about 30 minutes inland of our location). And we jumped on the day after Christmas as a scheduled storm started to roll in. Not sure of how the weather would show up for us, we gave ourselves plenty of time.

The Goleta mesas gave us all they had to offer from scenery to light. Gianna was a good sport and stayed calm and cool throughout our very long session! She is the beautiful and perfect combination of both of her parents. It was a joy for me to photograph these portraits of her and fun to see this young girl, whose family I have known for years, all grown up.

When we realized we were going to have an incredible sunset after all, we waited and Gianna received the most breathtaking senior session I have ever taken! haha. But seriously, I was so excited for how these pictures were turning out and am now excited to share them here. Here are my top 20…ok 21 favorite!