Shannon Montez Photography Blog » San Jose's Family and Child Photographer, Shannon Montez, captures all aspects of family life: Families, newborns, children, babies, high school seniors, and weddings.

This family was so great. Dad got Mom a gift certificate for a session for Christmas. I love it when Dads do that! Isn’t that an awesome gift? Anyway, we got together for this session and I had so much fun with them. He’s from South Africa, she’s from California, they met in Mexico. Well, actually the Gulf of Mexico (they were working on a cruise ship), and have lived in India and been all over the world. I felt more cultured and international just by talking to them!

Their daughter was the cutest thing ever. She had just woken up from a nap, but that didn’t stop her from being happy and smiley! I love this moment, you can just feel how much mom loves her baby.

I love making non-standing babies stand! For some reason, it always makes me laugh.

And when I laugh, she laughs.

A nice little family moment.

We sat her in a grassy field and watched her smile.

Classic family shot.

Bare baby shoulders. I don’t think parents approve of me nibbling on their babies, so I had to restrain myself. I miss those from my babies. Their shoulders are all bony now… just not the same…

WEEEE!!!

I really love this shot. The trees, the grass, the sunshine, the private moment that I witnessed from afar… It makes me happy.

One more, a collage I made from the session… It’s got happiness and love written all over it.

(I’m so behind on blogging! I have a lot of fun sessions to share. One at a time, though…)

Candice and Carlos ROCK. We had such a great time with these. We went to Santa Cruz and just played around for a few hours. I took way too many shots, and had a tough time narrowing it down to these.

They met as lifegaurds, so we definitely wanted water to be a part of the session. I love that we even got them on a lifegaurd tower.  (Although growing up in Sacramento, this isn’t exactly the type of tower they were using as lifegaurds!) I really loved all the options we had at the boardwalk. I got all giddy with the amount of color we found. I’m such a nerd…

And on that note…
 

What you don’t see in this shot is that we’re laughing at the dude who was walking in his underwear to come pick up his pants that were hanging on the tower.

 The famous Giant Dipper sign…

Just look at all that color!! Be still my heart…

My favorite color of blue. Makes me happy. I want to paint a wall in my house that color. Or put it in my logo. :p I love the relaxed way they’re interacting in that blue shot. Such a perfect moment.

(It’s late and I’m tired… these photos posted in the wrong order, but I’m leaving it!)

If you want to see the entire slideshow, click here.

So, while the kids were out of school for spring break we decided to go camping. Dave has a little book about great areas to camp in northern California and found Castle Crags State Park. His little book mentioned that this campground was named in Sunset Magazine’s list of top 50 campsites in the west or something like that. Sounds good. So, why not? Beautiful, huh? That’s a reason we decided to go there. Really great mountain scenery, peace and quiet. Our alternate plan was Disneyland, but we decided that really we wanted peace and quiet and solitude over crowds and crowding. Well, the crowds weren’t a problem, we had the campground to ourselves. I don’t know if that is because it was freaking April and most people know that the nights are still too cold for camping, or if other people knew what we soon found out…

…that peace and quiet at this campground was a JOKE!! We were camped literally 50 yards from a major interstate freeway. In a mountain pass. Which means all these semis  taking their loads across the state? They’re on this freeway. And they have to slow down. And they use those awesome jake brakes all day and night to slow down. At first it was funny. We set up camp, and decided to just deal. And then we heard the train. We didn’t know that on the other side of the freeway, I’m not kidding, were train tracks! Trains, going on a curve, which means they are noisy and squeaky as they pass. Seriously? Oh well… we drove all this way, we set up camp, the trains and semis aren’t going constantly, we’ll have fun anyway. Besides, we had stuff do besides sit around the campground. But at night… We honestly couldn’t hear Shelby and Matt, who were a few feet away, because of the noise. It was pathetic…. but a really funny memory! And that beautiful mountain? The view is only available after a drive and a hike.

The first night, we just set up camp and ate dinner. In the morning, we tried to be tough and cook eggs and sit around the fire. It was freezing! I think it was 42 degrees on the temperature gauge when we decided to give up and get in the car to warm up (it might have been 37, but I’ll go with 42, just to be safe). **edited to add: Dave just informed me that it was actually *32*, not 42 degrees… BRRR!!**  The kids were crying because their fingers were numb, and Franklin was shivering. So fun! So we decided to drive up and see the crags. The drive and hike were short, and the view was beautiful, but far away. This picture is a good example of why shooting people in the shade is more flattering… I was teaching Dave a few camera tricks… See all the shadows around the eyes? Not flattering. But a good illustration of our view after the short hike…

Franklin found a stick that was perfect for him…

Luckily, it warmed up fast and ended up being a gorgeous couple of days. The second night was not nearly as bad as the first, temperature-wise. After our hike, we took a drive up the canyon to get another look at the crags, as well as a better view of Mt. Shasta. We found a really cool place that has views of the crags… the cutest motel/campgound ever! It was called the Railroad Park Resort. Not only did the campground have views of the crags and no freeway/train noise, the motel was a bunch of cabooses converted to motel rooms. I wanted to stay there that night, but considering that the restaurant wasn’t open on weekdays yet (too early in the season), and the campground was still closed (ok… because Dave didn’t want to move, and let’s face it, he’s the one doing all the work in the set-up/take down) we decided to just tough it out one more night where we were and possibly go back later in the year. But maybe next time! It was so cute.

Once we got back from our little journey, we decided to take a hike from our campground down to the river, which happened to be under the freeway, under the railroad tracks, across a country road, and over a fun footbridge. To be fair to Sunset magazine, the campground on the other side of the river was night and day… they must’ve been talking about that side when they rated it highly… but it was closed because they had a handful of sick trees, so it wasn’t an option for us at that time.

(Dave and Piper, getting ready to go).

Hanging out under the railroad tracks.

Franklin demonstrating his favorite part about camping…

He seems to be sitting awfully close to where he just… um… Let’s change the subject.

Hi cutie pie.

The next day we packed up camp and headed over to Burney Falls. About an hour away, this park was also highly rated on Sunset’s list. Of course, this time, I was skeptical. We decided if it was worth it, we’d ditch our Friday plans and stay a couple more days. If not, we’d head home and get back into the swing of things. As we entered the park, we talked to the delightful ranger, who told us that it had gotten down to 19 degrees the night before. That made our decision! We were not going to camp. We took a look around, and loved what we saw. This park is going to be our next camping destination.

A family picture in front of the gorgeous falls, snapped by a passerby:

Man… I look like I’ve been camping… Good thing you can’t smell us!

I took a picture to demonstrate to Dave how slow shutter speeds can be super cool.

(I had the camera set up on a ledge, you can’t do this hand-held!) When I was a kid, my mom had a calendar with a cool misty-looking river. I thought there were rivers that actually looked like that all the time, and I made a goal to go see one. Does this count as achieving that goal?

Anyway, looking forward to going back there. Now, don’t you all go reserving the place up so we can’t get in!

After that, we headed over to Lake Shasta Caverns. We’d picked up a brochure at a gas station and thought it looked fun. Three adventures in one… a boat ride, a bus ride, and a hike through the caverns. Fancy. Cool thing was, we were the last tour of the day, and the only people in the tour… so we had our own private tour. It was awesome!

Our guide got this horrible pic of us… (dark, no flash, but here it is anyway…)

The caverns were pretty cool. But I think my favorite part of the whole thing was walking out of the cavern and back down the hill to the bus, where we were greeted with this vista:

The lake was gorgeous. Bright red shorelines, super blue water, green trees, blue sky, white clouds… a total feast for the senses. I’d love to go back and hang out on a houseboat there for a few days. Add that to my list!

for being such a bad and boring blogger this week!

It’s been a crazy one. My goal is to do only two sessions per week. I know that beyond that, I get crazy. With four kids and a dog and a husband and a house and a business, I can only take on so much without being sent over the edge! But in a combination of circumstances, I’ve done 5 this week, one of them being a wedding! Aye yay yay… Fun stuff, but it just leaves me little time for blogging. And housework. And cooking good meals. (ok, let’s face it… even without sessions keeping me busy I’ll find stuff like emails and Oprah to help me avoid the inevitable housework!)

I really really want to share the pictures from our camping trip a few weeks ago. It was a funny experience and I want to make sure I get it down! But, alas, and I have stuff to proof before Saturday, so it’s just going to have to wait a few more days.

Oh… but one more thing… and I don’t have a picture right now, and I wanted to make a special post, but I’m just going to talk about it anyway.

My baby turned four on Monday.

Something about that kills me! Four is not a baby anymore, by any stretch of the imagination. At three, I could still stretch my imagination. But at four… it’s done. He’s a kid. Not a baby. The other day, dropping him off at class at church, rather than giving me the little kiss on the lips I’ve come to expect, he turned his head at the last minute and gave me a kiss on the cheek. There’s a time when that starts to get weird, and I guess that time has come.

I had a session on Monday, and afterwards I went to grab a bite to eat at a local sandwich shop. As I sat there by myself, a mom came in with her little boy and they were having the cutest conversation about what they’d done last time the went to Tahoe, and I found myself missing my little dude, realizing that this sitting-by-myself thing at lunch will be a regular occurance in a couple of years, once my baby is in school full-time. I’m on the verge of a big life-change, and it feels weird to be staring it in the face! I’ve had so many years of being home with these people, sometimes being overwhelmed by their neediness, but so intertwined for so long, it feels weird to be moving out of that stage in my life! Luckily, they’re still small and they’re not off to college yet!

These folks are getting married TOMORROW!!

We’re going to have a great time. I had so much fun during our engagement session. They started out uncomfortable (as almost everyone does!) and complained that it didn’t feel natural. I assured them that by the end, they would feel very comfortable and relaxed… and they did. See? It doesn’t have to be painful! I feel the same way in front of the camera… it just takes a little while to stop fighting it.

This is one really good reason to have engagement shots done… you want to get all of the uncomfortable-ness out of the way before the big day. Now, they’re total pros and ready to go tomorrow!