Engagement Session in Santa Barbara & Malibu Beach

Jeongyeon and Junghyeok requested me to do both photography session and a highlight video on October 30th Sunday 2022

These two have been living in Los Angeles for about 10 years. The bride, Jeongyeon, came over from Korea to work in the U.S. and Junghyeok moved from Northern California for work as well. Even though they didn’t work at the same company, they had run into each other in KoreaTown.

These two are now tying their knots in Korea in December 2022.

Before they went back to Korea to get prepared for the wedding, they wanted to do an engagement session or a pre-wedding session to remember the memorable Southern California where they have met, they grew their love for each other and all the short trips they had gone during the covid time.

Jeongyeon, the bride and Junghyeok, the groom have a fond memory of Santa Barbara where they went on their 1st mini trip as a couple and wanted to capture some photos with the beautiful Spanish influenced Californian town with lots of palm trees and amazing white buildings.

Because of the couple’s work schedule, the photo session was only possible during weekends, so we chose Sunday, but just happened to fall the day before Halloween. There were lots of Halloween events going on and we were not able to get the shots we wanted. However, the couple still loved the photos.

After we were done with the Santa Barbara, we drove to El Matador Beach in Malibu. El Matador Beach is an amazing beach for photos. Because the beach doesn’t face directly to the west, often we are not shooting right against the sun, which gives more dimensions to photos. And because there are lots of rocks with pretty strong waves, photographers can use those elements to create something different than most other beaches in California. However, if you are someone who is looking to do a session here, it gets very crowded. When we were there, there were at least 6 photographers with their own couples and 4 other photographers or content creators doing their portrait session or video recordings. So find a photographer who has experience on this beach quite recently to capture the shots even if there are lots of people or other elements that get in the way. Also highly recommend going during a low tide to get the most amazing features of this beach.

It was a very warm October, almost November day.

But I feel the warm weather made the session on the Malibu beach extra special.