Happy New Year everyone!!! Do you feel different? I sure as hell don’t.

I do think it’s a little bit funny that I’m creating a blog post for this. However, I want it to be an annual thing for me. I thought this year would be a nice “warm up” considering I became legal less than 3 months ago and most of these photos are from free shoots of neighbors and friends.

With that said, I want to start out by giving a HUGE shoutout to everyone who put themselves in front of my camera in 2020. To all of you who dealt with all my awkward prompts, uncomfortable positions, and long gallery delivery times, I am so grateful for each and every one of you. You showed up and allowed me to practice my art. You helped me develop a flow, practice my prompts and posing, and most of you even took fashion advice from me! As someone whose closet is 90% hand-me-downs and lives in sweatpants when at home, I applaud you for putting your trust in me. (Please don’t worry if you’re reading this and considering booking with me, I do a lot of research about clothing and styling ahead of time.)

2020 was a wild one. Despite its difficulties, I am still grateful for it in many ways. Not only did it illuminate the importance of relationships in my life, one of the biggest silver linings for me was starting this business. I honestly don’t think I would have taken this step if COVID hadn’t happened. The extra time in my day allowed me to set up free sessions with neighbors to practice my photography. The extra money I saved and didn’t spend on planned travels allowed me to invest in photography and business courses. I had new found confidence and an eagerness to develop my skills. So with that said, I would like to share my favorites from 2020. AKA my “Best of 2020.” Please enjoy. (And leave a comment about your favs!!!) 🙂

Above: My first session at Sorich Park. An incredible location for any time of day because of the massive eucalyptus trees!

Below: A jaunt around the neighborhood never disappoints. 🙂

Below is a family of four. These boys were troopers and such a joy to photograph! We stayed local and visited Gerstle Park for this little session.

This was the first family I photographed several times. Pre-baby, post-baby, and holiday photos.

Below is the first family I ever photographed (for practice in 2020, that is). I think the session was over 2 hours and I shot over 1,000 photos. I can’t thank them enough for their patience with me. I have gotten so much better since! You can actually find a blog post about their session here that contains more photos as well.

Some of my closest friends are seen below. Another jaunt around the neighborhood. Mother and daughter.

Below was my first session photographing a senior. (No, she’s not a high school senior. 😉

It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to direct just one person. I found myself recycling the same poses over and over. But, ya know, that’s how this development thing goes.

I was also playing a lot with my editing style during this time. For these edits, I was aiming for bright colors with depth and richness in the blacks.

Family session in the redwoods. More friends. 🙂

As you can probably tell, the more sessions I began to shoot, the harder it was for me to choose favorites. Below is a family session at Rodeo Beach. It was so much fun to shoot! And even more difficult to edit because there were too many I loved!

I LOVE this photo below so much, I’m going to get it printed and framed as an example display for my clients. This session was taken in Santa Cruz. We took a little day trip to see friends we hadn’t seen in a long time and had a moody sunset session on the beach.

We did this session in the morning(!!) on the beach / marsh in Corte Madera. It holds a special place in their hearts for reasons I won’t disclose on here. Such a beautiful and inspiring family whom I love dearly.

Oh man, there are a lot from this session. More redwoods (another favorite location of mine) and these two clearly have had a lot of practice in front of the camera. And they’re really good looking so, ya know.

This session below threw me off at the beginning because the location had been overcast when I scouted it and ended up being full sun the day of the shoot. And there were very few places to hide behind trees because of the location of the sun! Luckily these two are good friends of mine and were patient while I placed them in strategic spots. Plus we were able to capture that breathtaking purple sky at the end of the day.

It was also really cold during the entire session but these two are complete badasses. Love you guys!

This “session” below was a fun one. It wasn’t technically a session. It was a meet-up and exchange of professional photos for one another in order to use it for promotions and branding.

This is Joy. I’m using her real name because she is a professional photographer who is also just starting her career. She doesn’t have a website (yet) but you’ll be seeing and hearing more about her in my future blog posts. It’s about supporting one another and building community. So if you’re a Bay Area photographer reading this and you wanna meet up, please send me a message!

So there you have my “best of” 2020. If you made it to the end of this post, I thank you and I applaud you.

Warmly,

Skyler