Mini Family Session in Downtown, Bakersfield

It warms my heart when previous clients of mine ask me to photograph them again. Today’s session is my fourth time photographing this beautiful family. ❤️❤️❤️ Thinking about it warms my heart SO MUCH. I’m excited for you to see the gallery of this special family and to share how they were apart of my beginning as a photographer. You might also be wondering why this was a mini session in Downtown, Bakersfield and not in Puerto Rico, hang tight, I’ll talk about that too!

Jill and her family have been with me since the beginning.

2012 was the year I graduated high school and the year I purchased my first camera. I started my first job out of high school as a host at Marie Callender’s. I was also a college student with a couple side jobs and a dream of being a photographer. Jill was a server at Marie Callender’s and she was one of the first to pay me for my work as a photographer. Supporting my dream. My heart is bursting even more now thinking about it!

One of my first sessions ever were of her boys at hart park. Levi, her youngest, wasn’t even born yet! Later I photographed the whole family and after that she hired me to photograph her WEDDING! One of my first weddings to photograph. I’ll have links at the bottom of the blog to an old family photo and one of their wedding photos.

Seeing the boys on this session did make me feel old! More than that though I felt so privileged to have them in front of my camera again. It was so good to see the boys grown and to see Jill, a wife, boy mom and now a Registered CT Technologist! Go girl! Shoutout to Ray, Jill’s husband who had to work during their session, we missed you Ray. We will have to do another session the next time I visit Bakersfield.

Thanks so much Jill for taking a chance with me at the very beginning of my photography journey and for continuing to trust me in capturing your beautiful family. I’ve love keeping up with you guys and seeing how much you’ve all grown as a family.

Where’s Bakersfield and Why was I there?

Bakersfield is a city in California that’s about 2 hours North of L.A. and it’s my hometown! I was born and raised in Bakersfield and that’s where I started my photography career. I met Alex in Puerto Rico and moved to the island when we got married. Which is why I am now based in Puerto Rico and known as a Puerto Rico Photographer.

With that said, I recently surprised my family with a visit. This visit was longer than usual, which allowed me to make myself available a couple days for photo sessions. Since I only had two days available I opened up mini sessions, which I rarely offer, in order to photograph more sessions in two days. Since this visit was a surprise for my family I wasn’t able to advertise it with enough time for more people to take advantage of it. For my next visit I’ll make sure to give everyone enough time. I know it takes time to coordinate schedules and outfits for sessions.

I love being able to visit my old home and photographing old clients/friends like Jill. Can’t wait for my next visit! Scroll to see some of my favorite shots of Jill and the boys that we took in just 30 minutes.