Elizabeth and Matt's Engagement Photos!

Congratulations to Matt and Elizabeth on their engagement! Beka and I met up with them in Laguna Beach the other weekend to do their engagement photos. We started out around the town and then headed up the coast to Crystal Cove. We had a great time doing their pictures and just hanging out with them (we all went to a great Thai restaurant afterwards). They were a lot of fun to photograph, which you can tell from the pictures below. They are actually friends of Chris and Rachel, whose wedding we photographed earlier this year (you can see some of their wedding pictures here). Thanks again for having us do your photos (and to Chris and Rachel for recommending us)!

About Us

Beka and I met at a private art show in late 2006 that a mutual friend of ours was hosting. We had a great conversation about our shared love of art, and began dating almost immediately. Six months later, I decided to quit my job of eight years at ESRI, a computer software company, and we founded Mod Photography. In September of 2007, we tied the knot ourselves.

Although we began our business shooting a variety of different subjects (portraits, weddings, commercial photography, etc.), we now focus almost exclusively on wedding and engagement photography. We LOVE photographing weddings. Our goal in covering a wedding is to record the events and details of the day in the most accurate, yet artistic way possible. It's a great feeling to be part of such an important day. It's exciting to capture all of the emotion behind an event like that, being behind the scenes with parents and their children, the bride and groom with their best friends, the joy, tears, laughter and last-minute anxiety over making sure everything is just right.

Having been married less than a year ago ourselves, the moment is still fresh in our minds. Right before our ceremony, one of my groomsmen (who I was a groomsmen for at his wedding) said to me, "Before you go out there, take a deep breath and try and be in the moment. There's so much happening that if you don't pay attention, it will all be a blur in your memory afterwards." I think that's the best advice I got at my wedding, and I can vouch for the truth of it. Everyone must go through that, and what Beka and I hope to do is to preserve the details and emotions of the day so that the couple can see all of the careful planning that they barely had time to notice on the actual day. So that we can show them what was happening all around them during those incredibly intense moments, to see the joy and happiness on their own faces.

And it's so satisfying to hear back from a couple about how much they loved their photos. I can't think of a more exciting event to be a part of.

Photography has always been a part of my life. My aunt and uncle are both wedding photographers, and my dad and grandmother were avid amateur photographers themselves. I have great memories of watching slide shows as a kid - actual slide shows - not the PowerPoint kind :). Although I studied Philosophy at Pomona College in Claremont, it was photography that became my passion. After college, I learned the finer points of printing from Michel Karmen at XIBIT Photography Lab in Los Angeles (winner of Best Printer/Lab at the 2003 International Photography Awards). I look forward to new challenges and providing people with timeless, artistic photos.

Beka has also had a love of art her entire life. She double majored in Studio Art and Art History at Dordt College in Iowa. She has studied painting, ceramics and a variety of other art forms, but is primarily devoted to photography these days. In the past she has worked in a gallery, and as the photo editor for a newspaper, and she currently runs the day to day operations of Mod Photography. Beka loves capturing the joys of everyday life and showing the world through different perspectives. She strives to show that through photography, even ordinary things can be extraordinary.

Beka and I currently reside in Redlands, California with our four cats (we each had two when we met) - Pico, India, Merlyn and Pixie (often affectionately referred to by their acronym, P.I.M.P.).