Sun and Life Photography

Sequoia Engagement Session //Erin + Diego//

sunandlifephoto — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:36:04 +0000

Today we wanted to share with you a couple that is very dear to our hearts. Erin is one of my very best friends- we go way back. We met in Junior High and have some amazing old school memories like having serious crushes on Gavin Rossdale and spending hours on AOL instant messenger when we were in 6th grade. Diego and Erin have been together since college and he has become one of my favorite people in the world. He is warm, silly and adventurous and it happens to work out perfectly that Diego and Jeff have become great friends with SO much in common. The 4 of us have had a lot of good times together including the most recent adventure up at Kings Canyon National Park. Camping, river fun and hikes with these two was great! We had a chance to snap some images of E+D in the trees and I just love the feel of this session. Erin and Diego will be getting married this August and I can’t wait to celebrate with them. It is such an awesome feeling when your very good friend meets her perfect partner and they decide to spend the rest of their lives together. We love you both so much and can’t wait for August and the next adventure to come!

Marin Headlands Center for the Arts//Wedding

sunandlifephoto — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 21:47:57 +0000

Monday is upon us and we have had ourselves a lovely weekend full of photo adventuring with a super rad couple in SF, learning how to play craps, eating some seriously delicious food out of trucks (the chairman truck !) and catching up with old friends at a sweet gallery opening in San Jose -go check out some amazing art this month at Anno Domini. It was a great well rounded weekend indeed and today we have for your viewing pleasure some images from Jessica + Forrest’s amazing day in Marin. These two are in Paris right now honeymooning it up and boy are we envious, but we had to share some images from their celebration out at The Marin Headlands Center for the Arts. We loved this venue with its big windows, chipped paint walls and vintage industrial feel- it was a dream to photograph and a perfect fit for Jessica and Forrest. P.S. we had the pleasure of working with Katie Powers Catering at this event and boy does she know what she’s doing- amazing crew and delicious and organic food with a beautiful presentation! And we loved the work of Shana from Fox and Doll for her amazing vintage inspired make up and hair artistry! Good stuff!

Santa Cruz //Engagement Session//

sunandlifephoto — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 22:54:42 +0000

What happened? It is already June and we can not believe how time is flying! We have had a great start to wedding season madness 2013 and are looking forward to some really great celebrations coming up in the next few months; including the big day of these two lovebirds! Alise and Tom will be tying the knot down in Big Sur come July (yew! we do love us some Big Sur!) and we had the chance to meet up with them here in Santa Cruz for some yummy Verve Coffee and a stroll through campus up at UCSC. Have we told you how much we heart engagement sessions? They really are the number one best way for everyone to get comfy, cozy and used to the camera being around. Most people are a little nervous about having their photos taken professionally and we really do recommend this 2 hour block of time to all couples we meet with. It’s one less thing to have to worry about on wedding day- we show up and bam! you are already used to our ninja-like ways and hardly notice when we start snapping pictures of the final touches of your lipstick being applied or your groomsman tying his bow tie (or trying to tie his bow tie- we have some good stories about bow ties by the way). The point is your comfortable, familiar and ready to thoroughly enjoy your day- not worried about feeling funny in front of the camera. So for now, check out the images from a beautiful summer session here in town and enjoy this lovely Wednesday afternoon!

Radonich Ranch Wedding::Rachel+Ari::

sunandlifephoto — Fri, 24 May 2013 17:14:55 +0000

It’s Friday and we are gearing up for another amazing wedding in Marin this coming weekend. But today we would love to share with you the oh-so fun wedding of Ari + Rachel which took place in the Santa Cruz mountains at an awesome/magic place called Radonich Ranch. The Ranch was a pretty epic backdrop for a celebration and we really loved how R+A brought in splashes of summer color in their florals, bow ties, and amazing flower fascinators that each bridesmaid wore (Rachel made them all and they were all epic!). Wedding season is in full swing my friends and it is going to be a good one! We are feeling so blessed to be documenting such amazing moments in our couples lives and quite honestly couldn’t be happier. We have been trying to max out on all this amazing sunshine with mountain bike sessions, open water swims around the wharf and of course plenty of quality time with the camera!

Marjeanna and Mark :: Marin County Engagement Session

sunandlifephoto — Mon, 06 May 2013 21:50:33 +0000

And it’s Monday…we hope you had a fantastic weekend, full of Cinco de Mayo fun, Bay area sports madness and a little bit of stormy weather. We are feeling relaxed and excited for the week ahead. Last week, 7×7 SF featured a great wedding we shot last fall with an awesome couple of lovelies- Alexandra and Tyler. Be sure to head over to 7×7 to take a look! We spent some time in lovely Marin County last week at a new locale to us: China Camp. We E- sessioned it up with a great couple; Marjeanna + Mark and had a great time running around with their amazing pup Finley, chasing light and enjoying a rare warmish evening north of the Golden Gate. We can’t wait to go back to China Camp and we are for sure bringing our mountain bikes!

Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk ::Lavish Salon::

sunandlifephoto — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:43:18 +0000

Hello Monday. What a great week it has been- client meetings, 2014 bookings, photo shoots and sunshine. Oh and not to mention the Big Sur Marathon was this weekend and we had a great time participating in the relay event. It was such an amazing feeling to run on Highway 1 with no cars around and to really get to soak in the incredible views of that special place. Looking forward to some amazing Big Sur weddings coming up nd hopefully to get some summer time camping in as well. Today we would love to share some images from a collaboration with the stylists at Lavish Salon here in Santa Cruz. The girls at Lavish wanted photos for the salon that were representative of Santa Cruz- and what’s more Santa Cruz than the Beach Boardwalk right? So we had some fun running around after hours with this group of lovelies!

Surfer Magazine ::Published Freewaters Advert::

sunandlifephoto — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:23:47 +0000

Hi all! We hope you are having a lovely Thursday and enjoying some of this insane sunny weather. We are headed up to San Fran for a little engagement session fun today but we wanted to do a quick little post about a rad company we worked with a couple of months ago. Freewaters is a new footwear company based out of Northern California and they have a pretty sweet mission focusing on providing clean drinking water via well drilling in Africa- go check ‘em out and be sure to pick up the newest issue of Surfer Magazine to see the ad we shot on page 61. Okay were going to go drive over the Golden Gate Bridge now! Ciao!

Featured :: Green Wedding Shoes :: Lauren and Brandt

sunandlifephoto — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 22:17:05 +0000

It’s been quite an eventful week with Engagement giveaways, style shoots for Lavish Salon, and a nice little feature on Green Wedding Shoes! We were able to take yesterday and head to Big Sur for some amazing swimming hole and deli sandwich magic! Now we’re energized, refreshed, and ready for an awesome week of shooting, editing, sipping coffee and talking about awesome weddings coming up next year. So take a moment and head on over to Green Wedding Shoes to check out Lauren and Brandt’s unbelievable wedding at Castle House and Garden. We were honored to work with Theresa of Castle House and Garden (who also happens to be the mastermind behind the amazing floral design of Tessa’s Garden ) and Coastside Couture to document such a fantastic day of celebration!

Engagement Session Giveaway

sunandlifephoto — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 19:48:16 +0000

Exciting stuff going on around here! Today we have for you an awesome session from one of our most favorite places; Big Sur. Elise and Dustin are seriously a good time and we can’t wait to meet up with these two again soon for more gallivanting and adventure. So, we are super stoked to be giving away an engagement session of awesomeness! That’s right we want to give away a two hour engagement session to one lucky couple, and it gets even better- we are partnering up with the fabulous Melissa Marie Hair to style that engagement session anywhere in the Monterey//Bay Area- that means hair & makeup & a 2 hour session are all complimentary to you!

All you have to do is go on over to Facebook and give Sun+Life Photography a like, Melissa Marie Hair a like and then tweet about the free E session to spread the word- make sure you mention @sunandlifephoto or @dorisunandlife so we know you tweeted! Okay, that sounds like a lot of tasks but really it breaks down like this: 1 entry if you like Sun+Life, you get 2 entries if you like us and Melissa Marie Hair and 3 entries for both Facebook likes and tweeting about it- Bam! 3 entries just like that! From there we’ll be doing a good ol’ fashioned raffle. Pretty awesome right? We think so! Okay so ready set go get some free engagement fun!! P.S. you only have until April 24th to get your entries in;)

Summerland Engagement Session ::Valerie+Kellen::

sunandlifephoto — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:14:22 +0000

Happy Thursday to all you lovelies. We are here in the office dreaming of being outside on such a beautiful, sunny day. But we had ourselves a great weekend with an engagement session in Big Sur- that meant coffee at the Big Sur Bakery and up close and personal time with the Bixby Bridge two things we are pretty stoked on, not to mention hanging with the awesome Elise & Dustin! We have been spending quit a bit of time down in the Southern part of the Monterey Bay lately with a presentation at CSU Monterey Bay of the short film we made last year all about access to healthcare and the cholera epidemic that hit post earthquake Haiti- check it out here . We also had an awesome road bike mission around old Fort Ord and spent some quality time at the Monterey Bay Aquarium with the otters, tuna and leopard sharks:) For today we have some images of the lovely Valerie and Kellen who we will be meeting up with this summer for an amazing celebration up at UCSC- V+K you two are so much fun and we can’t wait for your big day in September!