Emily and Max’s Beach Engagement Session on Film, Malibu California Fine Art Engagement Photography

Emily and Max’s engagement session was photographed on one of those perfect warm November days in California when I ask myself why oh why do I have to fly back to New York?! I met Emily many years ago when I was still in college studying photography at NYU and interning at Richard Avedon’s archive. Emily was a fellow intern, but already out of college, which intimidated me a little, but she was so awesome we became friends and bonded over our love of art. She moved away to go to Penn law school, where she met her amazing fiance Max, and then they both moved back to the city and we reconnected right after they got engaged. Since that night I began dreaming up their engagement session and knew it had to be epic. However finding a time to make it work between my crazy wedding season schedule and the even crazier schedule of two lawyers was making it super hard to schedule a time to shoot in the city before it got too cold out. We were all planning on visiting family in Los Angeles for Thanksgiving so I floated the idea of a sunrise session in Malibu on the Saturday after Thanksgiving since we’d all be on East Coast time anyway (which since I’m an early riser already means I get up between 4 and 5am) and they loved the idea! Stepping out on the sand before sunrise was a little like walking in snow, but as soon as the sun rose it was absolutely magnificent with pink light flooding the beach, which we had completely to ourselves other than a few surfers. Since Emily and I both studied fashion photography we agreed it should have more of an editorial feel and less of a bohemian beach shoot so Emily found two incredible dresses and we chose a beach with amazing rocky cliffs and spent the morning running up and down the beach having a blast. I feel so honored to be able to capture these major moments for my friends and am counting the days till their wedding next Spring!