Guys, I’m really starting to love sunrise family sessions, despite having to get up super early on weekends. Parking is easy and there are fewer crowds. Plus early fall mornings in San Francisco can bring you variety in the sky. This particular morning began with cloud cover, but the sun eventually broke through and as the fog lifted, it acted as a soft light diffusion.

Aroon, Akhila, and Malvi met me just after sunrise at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park. They wanted to have their session somewhere within the park and so I offered up some suggestions. In the early stages of the pandemic, they spent a lot of time walking around Stow Lake. So you can imagine my surprise when they said I was exposing them to areas they had never been before! There’s something really sweet about discovering “newness” in a location that is otherwise very familiar to you, and it was really lovely to witness that during our time together. 🙂

Aroon and Akhila are so sweet together. I can tell they make a great team. They were great at making Malvi laugh and put her in the most adorable outfit for the session! (She was dressed better than me!) Malvi was anything but fussy as we walked around Stow Lake. We visited Huntington Falls (thankfully it wasn’t super busy) and went to the top of Strawberry Hill. We even made it to the stone bridge (I LOVE that bridge)! It was a lovely start to start a weekend morning.

Thank you, Aroon, Akhila, and Malvi, for letting me capture these special memories for you. You have a beautiful family!

I hope you enjoy scrolling through some of my favorite images from this session! The eucalyptus trees are pretty epic at Golden Gate Park. 🙂

I LOVE the above photo! Malvi laughing directly at the camera + Akhila laughing out of focus on the left of the image makes my heart swell. <3

Seriously, how cute are Malvi’s outfits? As I noted earlier, better dressed than me. 🙂

Also, Akhila’s earrings are AWESOME.

I was so happy Stow Lake wasn’t super busy at this time of day, so it was super easy to grab a few photos in front of Huntington Falls!

We decided to hike up behind the falls to the top of Strawberry Hill. There are so many beautiful trails and epic climbing trees.

Malvi is just the sweetest!

These sun bleached trees are so fun to incorporate into images. They’re great for sitting, leaning, or climbing (if you have kiddos that are old enough)!

I absolutely love this stone bridge at Stow Lake (seen in the images below)!

Sleepy baby…

While Malvi slept, we grabbed a few quick photos of just Mom and Dad to end the session. 🙂

Reliving this session just gave me all the warm fuzzies. Thank you so much, Aroon and Akhila, for letting me in to capture the essence of your family! What a wonderful memory. 🙂

If you enjoyed this post, you may also love:

Devol Family Sunrise Session on the West Coast

Dreamy Family Session in Redwood Regional Park

Sunset Family Session at Rodeo Beach