The Essence of Love in San Francisco

Shannon and Jeff basically gave me the artists dream. They pulled up and when they walked out they were just wearing simple, moveable, comfortable, but still subtly fashionable jeans, shirt, and tennis shoes. And because I knew they chose clothing that they would actually be able to walk around in, clothes that felt like them, I wanted to do what I normally do when it’s me and Ash and Emmy on a trip. I wanted to run, explore, go down random side streets we found. But that wasn’t the part where my dream came true. That part was when they literally said that whether the photos were imperfect, blurry, sharp, in focus, out of focus, wide, zoomed in, they trusted me and let me do whatever I thought that would show not how their physical beings looked, but what their relationship in this city felt like. They wanted it to feel like LIFE.

I got to see the first apartment that they lived at together. A small place above a tailor and alterations shop smack dab in the middle of Chinatown in San Francisco. We wandered the same exact places that they themselves would walk by everyday in their neighborhood, going to and from work and on their date nights.

Ash and I met in Tempe, Arizona when we were in college. Those were the times when we would grab ice cream at 11pm after spontaneously going to the lake to ride bikes at night, and then head home at midnight. No matter where we live, that city will always have a special place in our hearts. We take Emmy back there all the time, riding bikes around the college campus we met at, literally wandering the same streets together that Ash and I used to go down when we were 19.

The city that your relationship starts, no matter where it is, always holds a special place in your heart. Whether its a big city or small, there are feelings of nostalgia that will always well up in your throat.

So after weeks and weeks of cloudy and foggy days, (even the hours leading up to the shoot had clouds) the photo gods gave us a miracle and let the sun peep out for those last few hours, we felt the rays on our faces, and they basically said:

GO
And so we ran wild all around the city not knowing what shots we were gonna get, and just going with it.

I learned that sometimes, you gotta just let go of expectations
and trying to get perfect shots, and just enjoy what’s happening.

If you can do that, true happiness will show in the photos