I had a blast on Saturday shooting a combination engagement/family portrait session with Victoria, Jeremy and Tyler. Victoria and Jeremy are actually already married, but their ceremony will be in Montana, so they wanted some "engagement pictures", and they brought along their adorable three-year-old daughter Tyler to share in the fun. They even spent some time the night before coaching Tyler to make a "pretty face," which paid off with some great smiles. We spent the first half of the session wandering around the arboretum chasing ducks and making duck noises  – and then Tyler got a break and mom and dad brought out their best "pretty faces."

I teamed up with the very talented Tim Engle to teach a photography workshop at Preston Castle, in Ione (outside of Sacramento). The workshop was fantastic – we had a great group of twelve photographers, and Tim recruited eight top-notch models and a crew of stylists and make-up artists. The castle is a fantastic location – it served as a boy’s reformatory in the early 1900s before being shut down, and now they’re trying to restore it. It’s in a state of major disrepair, with crumbling walls, eerie, barely lit hallways and lots of creepy nooks and cranny – what better place to bring a bunch of pretty models… and, of course, a guy in a clown suit! I was teaching all day, so I only got to take a few pictures (which was KILLING me! I wanted to shoot so badly…) But I had a fantastic time instructing – I was very happy to combine my love for photography with my love for teaching. You can see some of the shots the participants took here.