I know that the teaser we posted a couple of weeks ago left some of you very patiently waiting to see the rest of Ksusha and Vova’s Hawaii Trash the Dress Session :) And it’s ready now!

We love it when our clients have crazy original ideas for their shoots and we were beyond happy when Ksusha told us about the perfect jungle for their Trash the Dress photos. It usually gets dark very quickly among the tall trees and we made this our first location of the day. In fact, it was almost a bit spooky to be there, especially when we realized that some parts of Jurassic Park were actually filmed in that exact area :) I was trying to not let my imagination run completely wild, though, and I now believe the dinosaurs in these jungles became instinct after getting bitten to death by the super-vicious mosquitoes we encountered there! Soon after entering the jungle all of us simultaneously started doing some kind of strange dance/yoga movements while trying to scratch every part of our bodies (which were now itching). Mosquitoes also made it a bit hard to concentrate on shooting when all we wanted to do was scratch :)

Some of our faves:

Here’s a behind-the-scenes shot of Mike photographing Ksusha:

And some of the resulting images:

I was also working all available angles, be it in a mountain stream or not :)

And here’s what I saw:

Mike and his new yellow Crocs are inseparable:

The shot he was getting:

Our second location was at a tiny and cute beach not too far from Waikiki.

Throughout the session we got deeper and deeper into the water until we were eventually almost swimming while barely holding our cameras and lights above the water. It got dark quickly but we were having tons of fun and couldn’t stop shooting!

We looove Trash the Dress Shoots as the original idea behind them is to simply be free to see how creative we can get without worrying if the dress might get dirty. Dry cleaning it afterwords will usually take care of everything and still allow you to store the dress spotless.

We are glad to offer Trash the Dress photo sessions (also known as day-after-shoots) around San Francisco. The location need not be as tropical and we can simply roam around the city or countryside while creating amazing images with you dressed up in your wedding clothes. And the great thing is that we won’t have the time pressure usually found on a wedding day.

I feel like we’ve known this family forever – it started with us photographing their beautiful wedding almost three years ago and then with us taking Julia’s maternity pictures just a few days before baby Anna was born. Finally, few days ago we got to meet little Anna and take some portraits of her on the day of her 2nd Birthday!

Here are my favorites:

Anna is such a happy baby! She’s just adorable and full of energy! It was more of a cute pink hurricane then a little girl :)

This one is definitely one of my favorites, I feel like you can really see Anna’s fun personality here :)

Mike got a quick shot of me shooting. I have to say it was quite a workout :)

It was awesome to see you guys! Happy Bday Anechka!

We saved the best blog entry for last from our Mexico destination wedding: Rimma and Mark were all up for a Trash the Dress session after the wedding! We love having the opportunity to get really creative and we couldn’t have been more happy to hear it.

Some people take the name of these sessions a bit too literally and think that the purpose of a “Trash the Dress” (TTD) shoot is to actually ruin a perfectly good, innocent gown. We’ve even seen shots where a bride was splashing paint on her dress! Well, the original idea behind these shoots was about being free to see how creative you can get without worrying about getting the dress dirty. After all, dry cleaning after the shoot should take care of it and still let you store the dress spotless.

With Rimma and Mark we spent half a day roaming through Mexican ruins, a jungle, and cenotes while stopping here and there for photos on our way to the beach. Here are some favorites:

We found a beautiful underground cenote where we had a lot of fun shooting and swimming:

If any of our past or current brides are considering such a photo session, we’ll be excited to shoot it for you. It can simply be about roaming the city or countryside while taking some amazing shots with you fully dressed in your wedding clothes. Let us know if this sounds appealing.

We shot a gorgeous wedding at Santana Row’s Valencia Hotel this Sunday and we can’t wait to share these photos with you next. Hope you all had a great weekend!

Natasha

As promised, here’s the second part of the super fun photo session at City Hall, San Francisco. Please enjoy!

Natasha