Bring Your Whole Relationship | How to Make Your Couples Session Actually Feel Like You | Los Angeles Couples Photographer

Every couples session I photograph starts the same way: I get on a video call with the people in front of me and I ask them to tell me about themselves. Not about what they want to wear or where they want to shoot. About themselves.

And somewhere in that conversation, something shifts. They stop thinking about the session and start talking about their actual lives. Their inside jokes. The things they do together on a Saturday when there is nowhere to be. The trips they have taken, the rituals they have built, the weird little traditions that make their relationship theirs.

That is the session I want to make.

Not a session that looks like a session. A session that looks like them.

What Most Couples Bring to a Session (And What I Would Rather Have)

Most people show up to a couples session with a location in mind and an outfit picked out. Both of those things matter and I will absolutely help you think through them. But if that is all you bring, we are leaving the best stuff at home.

The best stuff is the way you move together. The thing you do with your hands when you are not thinking about it. The way one of you always makes the other laugh right when the other is trying to look composed. The sound of you two when nobody is watching.

That is what I am actually trying to photograph. And the way we get there is by building a session around who you actually are.

Brittaney and Chad: What Happens When You Keep Showing Up

Brittaney and Chad have been in front of my lens more times than I can count. We started with an outdoor session in fancy clothes. Then bike gear — she is a triathlete, and that is part of who she is, so of course it made it into photos. A beach anniversary session the following year, then one built entirely around Brittaney's shadow puppet artistry, which she brings to life with projectors in a way that is genuinely unlike anything I have ever photographed. Then a maternity session. A newborn session. A family session. A cake smash. Every season of their life, documented.

That history changes everything about how we work together. By the time we did their in-home session, there was no agenda walking in the door other than to create something fun and unique. Brittaney started in the bathroom doing her makeup — t-shirt, underwear, completely herself. Chad joined her. We moved into the living room for some quieter, more intimate moments, and then it got playful. Lampshades on their heads. Album covers held up in front of their faces with the most ridiculous expressions behind them. Things happen when two people are completely at ease with each other and the photographer in the room has become something close to a friend.

That session worked because of everything that came before it. Years of trust created a space where having no plan was actually the plan.

I will do a full post on Brittaney and Chad someday, because their story deserves it. For now — the shadow puppet session is HERE, and the beach session is HERE. Both are worth a look if you want to see what it looks like when a couple just shows up as themselves.

Miranda and Brandon: That Same Ease, Session One

What I love about Miranda and Brandon's story is that they got there on the first try. No years of history with me, no accumulated trust built session by session. They just walked in knowing who they were and what their home felt like, and that was enough. You can read their full session HERE.

Their 10th anniversary session never left the house — until the very end. They started with their coffee ritual. Not a staged version of it — the actual thing. Grinding the beans, pouring the cup, the way they move around each other in the kitchen without thinking about it. Then music. They put on the record player and danced. Not for the camera. For each other. I was there, but they forgot about that pretty quickly, which is exactly what I am going for.

We did step outside at the end — the Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena gave us something architectural and grand that played beautifully against the warmth of everything that came before it. But the heart of that session was their kitchen, their record player, their couch. The life they had already built together, showing up exactly as it is.

That kind of ease does not require years of sessions. It requires knowing yourself well enough to say: this is what we are actually like. Here is our kitchen. Here is our music. Come photograph that.

Aaron and Chris: Fully Committed

Aaron and Chris came in with a concept and they were all in. Cowboys. Rented a location in Malibu, showed up with hats and boots and a blanket that has meaning to them — the kind of object that carries a whole history between two people without needing any explanation. They did not need me to tell them what to do. They just needed a photographer who would keep up.

What I love about that session is that the concept was never a costume in the way that word implies something hollow. It was an expression of something real about them — the way some people just have a whole aesthetic that is genuinely theirs, and when you give them permission and a location and an afternoon, they inhabit it completely.

Somewhere in the middle of that afternoon, they proposed to each other.

I was there for it. I have the images. That is what happens when two people show up as themselves and let the session be whatever it needs to be — sometimes it becomes something you did not even know you were going to do that day. Not long after, I shot their elopement. That is still one of my favorite days I have spent behind a camera.

That session started because they had an idea that was fully, specifically theirs. That is all it takes.

The Question I Want You to Actually Sit With

Here it is: what do you two actually do?

Not what sounds good. Not what photographs well. What do you actually do when you are just living your life together?

Do you cook together? Is one of you the chef and the other the sous chef who mostly tastes things and offers opinions? Do you have a standing Saturday morning ritual — coffee in a specific spot, a farmers market you always hit, a diner you have been going to for years? Do you have a hobby that is genuinely yours, something you built together or discovered together or embarrass your friends with together?

I have had couples bring dessert to share — just the thing they do on a Friday night, no setup, no props. I loved everything about that concept. (They ended up keeping those images private, which is their right, but I would make that session again in a heartbeat with anyone who wanted it.)

I have had couples spend their session at a museum like they love to do, just with a photographer quietly in the corner because that is genuinely the kind of thing they do.

None of it was cheesy. All of it was real.

A Few Ideas to Get You Thinking

You do not have to come in with a full concept. But if you are the kind of person who likes to brainstorm, here are some things worth thinking about:

What is the thing you two do that other people sometimes raise an eyebrow at, but you genuinely love? Bring that.

Is there a place that is yours? A specific bench, a neighborhood, a beach, a corner of a city that has history for you two? We can go there.

Is there something you make together, collect together, or geek out about together? A game you play, a show you watch, a sport you do or follow, a food you are both weirdly passionate about?

What would a Saturday with nowhere to be look like for you two? That is often the most honest answer.

Mini golf. A favorite restaurant before it opens. A record store you always end up in. A hike you have done a hundred times. A bakery. A bookshop. A rooftop. A kitchen.

All of it is fair game.

Creative and Weird is Also Completely On The Table

I want to be clear about something: if you want to get creative — really creative, concept-driven, a little strange, fully committed to a character or a world — I am so here for that. That is genuinely one of my favorite things to do. The shadow puppet session exists because Brittaney came to me with a real artistic vision and we leaned all the way into it. That kind of collaboration lights me up.

What it takes is a couple who is comfortable enough with themselves to be able to play. To step into something, commit to it, and not take themselves too seriously in the process. That is its own kind of authenticity — not the authenticity of your kitchen on a Sunday morning, but the authenticity of two people who know each other well enough to be weird together in front of a camera. Both are real. Both make great images.

What I am not interested in is a concept that sounds good on paper but does not actually connect to either of you. The through line in every session I love — whether it is someone dancing in their living room or wearing a lampshade on their head — is that it came from somewhere true. Bring me something true and I will make it work. The wilder the better, honestly.

How We Figure It Out Together

Here is the thing: you do not have to walk in with a fully formed plan. That is what our pre-session call is for.

Before every session, we talk. Not just about logistics — about you. I ask questions. I listen for the things that light you up. And then we figure out together how to build a session that reflects all of it.

Sometimes the best ideas come out in the last five minutes of that call, when someone says something offhand about a thing they love and the other person lights up. That is the session.

I want to make something that, ten years from now, you look at and say: yes. That was us. That was exactly us.

If you are ready to talk about what yours could look like, I would love to hear from you. You can reach me HERE