HazelPhotoDev – Page 11 – Hazel Photo Weddings

Cherry Blossom Festival Japantown San Francisco 2018 Paul Gargagliano

Cherry Blossom Festival Japantown San Francisco

This is just a small fraction of the excitement of San Francisco’s Cherry Blossom Festival. I made this series of photographs along the parade route from San Francisco City Hall up to Japantown. I love photographing a parade, why? This array of tangentially connected groups come out to fly their flags in whatever way they know to fly them: children in a mobile classroom sitting in rows, singing and doing hand dances; Boy Scouts sweating through heavy regalia, carrying a paper mâché tiger; The elderly waving cherry blossom branches, hoisting one-ton towers of wine (Mikoshi); and the bystanders in their various states of gawkery.

For more photos of the Mikoshi click here.

Big Sur Wedding Photographer

This was my first time photographing a wedding in Big Sur, and the landscape did not disappoint. There are reasons to get married in a setting as beautiful as the Wind and Sea Estate. You need less decor! Just look how the landscape and the light change color as the day proceeds. That’s California for you. Honestly, Big Sur is kind of a wedding photographer’s dream.

Jess and Nick had an intimate wedding with just 20 guests at the gorgeous Wind and Sea Estate in Big Sur, California. I definitely got to know the guests a bit better than I do when photographing a wedding with over 100 guests, and I am grateful for this, because across the board Jess and Nick’s people were delightful human beings. This was unsurprising really, as they are two of the warmest people I have ever had the pleasure of photographing. That warmth was on their faces all day long, and a week later when I saw them again, they were still glowing from deep within.

Late into the night, after Jess & Nick had, surfed, and showered, and donned spiffy spiffy togs, and processed through verdant hills, and spoke their vows, and kissed at a seaside altar (not once, but whenever the spirit moved them, like champs, like people who know exactly what they want) and after they read Shel Silverstein’s The Missing Piece to their guests, after they were showered again, this time with lavender confetti, and after they dined, and danced, and were showered again, but this time with the words of their eloquent friends and family, they had a bonfire, and listened to the sea, and it grew dark.

Big Sur Wedding Photographer Wind and Sea Resort

Big Sur Wedding Photographer Wind and Sea Estate

Wedding attire: Jill Stuart/BHLDN

Florist: We are gonna buy a bunch of succulents

Wedding planner: Sea and Stars Catering, Jamie

Hair: Kim Larson

Makeup: Kim Larson

DJ and/or band: Spotify Playlist

Videographer: none

Cake: Sea and Stars (Pies, cookies and s’mores by a fire pit)

Catering: Sea and Stars Catering

Invitations: paperlesspost

Walking in Haight Ashbury

I went for a walk in the Haight the other day. It was alllllright. The sun was out. I had headphones screwed into my ears. I was a bit lost in that breeze-on-skin/tunes-flowing feeling, So I’m thinking about how my dad hitched out here to San Francisco in his early twenties from New York, how he was going to get a job making leather sandals and such. Then he ran out of money, hitched back, signed up for art school, met my mama.

The Haight is kinda sleepy really. I guess it’s a Tuesday during that post-lunch slump (aaaahhh freelancing.) So I’m walking along, taking in the sites. It seems like there’s always something coming and going along the storefronts: high-end sneakers, joke socks, sex toys. I pass yet another gaggle of young people, traveler sorts, grungy, tie-dye clad, no lie. All the sudden it feels like something fell on the back of my head, I look around vigilantly, but it’s such a light touch, maybe it was nothing, so I wander further in reverie. A couple blocks on I happen upon a vintage shop. Oh, look at these beautiful brown leather boots! Are they my size? I crouch down to try them on, and something falls from the back of my neck. I kid you not, it’s a tissue full of weed that has now spilled all over the floor. In rushed fear I scoop it up, shove it in my pocket and continue walking through Haight Ashbury…

Walking in Haight Ashbury

Running to Ocean Beach – San Francisco

Yesterday I ran through Golden Gate Park to Ocean Beach, and back from my house in San Francisco. I knew it was going to be the longest run I had ever completed, and I knew I was going to complete it. I’m 37 years old for whatever that matters. It was a 5.45 mile run.

On the run I had a revelation about my own psychic health, and about the role habits can play in psychic health more generally. For all of my life I have enjoyed a strong baseline of psychic wellbeing. As I ran, my legs moving effortlessly below me, I could feel distinctly that the shape of my life over the years has rested on my underlying psychic health.

In that moment, I smiled big and felt deliriously happy. Good habits can bring an elevated level of psychic health, even for those with a stable baseline. (I know. I know. I am definitely a “stable genius.”) I felt a wildly outsize sense of accomplishment and power, and I want to feel it again. It was so delicious.

Running to Ocean Beach San Francisco

San Francisco Marriage Proposal Photographer

San Francisco Marriage Proposal Photographer – SF MOMA

Kevin found me on yelp, figure that. He told me that he lived with his girlfriend, Maggie, down in San Diego and that they were planning a trip up to San Francisco, and it was going to be quite a trip, because he was hoping they would be engaged on the return flight. We made a master marriage proposal plan to be carried out at the spectacular Battery Godfrey. I sent him a video of exactly where he would stand in front of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge… point there, tap here, kneel there… every detail of the marriage proposal was planned out except for the rain (I hear it doesn’t do that in San Diego.) So it definitely rained. We made a backup master marriage proposal plan at San Francisco City Hall, and Kevin executed it perfectly. I have to say it’s thrilling every time I get to photograph a marriage proposal, and these two were about the nicest giddiest folks you could hope to spend a rainy afternoon photographing. After the proposal at San Francisco City Hall we headed over to SF MOMA for a few more deliriously happy photographs.

marriage proposal photographer san francisco bay area

San Francisco City Hall Documentary Wedding Photographer

J and M had a sweet ceremony in the rotunda at San Francisco’s City Hall. I love how their faces glowed with happiness right after their ring exchange and kiss. It was a blissfully quiet day, as far as San Francisco City Hall is concerned. This gave us the opportunity to explore some of the lovelier parts of the grand historical building. J and M and their small wedding party brought along not one, but two ridiculously cute dogs.

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