Tia UCLA 2019 Graduation Portraits | Los Angeles, California

Hey guys! I’m back to blogging after taking a few weeks off focusing on some client work. About a month ago, I got a DM on Instagram from my talented photographer friend Tia who I’ve been following ever since I started getting into portraits early on in my photography career. She was looking for a photographer to do her grad photos and after talking to her about the logistics, we set on a date to do the grad shoot. Unfortunately, LA weather was being very weird at the time so we decided to push back the photo shoot to a later date. It’s a good thing we did because it started raining at the original time and date that we scheduled the shoot! Tia really wanted to get that beautiful golden light in her photos so rescheduling was the best decision. We settled on a early morning sunrise shoot the day after Memorial Day. Fast forward to the day of the shoot, I was barely able to function. Having only 2 hours of sleep in the past 24 hours, I was very tired but determined to do my best with the shoot.

I first met Tia at an Instameet back in 2015. Then I saw her again at a couple of other meetups after that. Before this shoot, the last time I saw her was over 3 years ago at a Laguna Beach instameet. It’s crazy how time flies!

To be honest I was a little nervous doing this shoot. I’ve never shot a fellow photographer’s graduation portrait before and I knew that her expectations were really high when it came to the photos since she herself has shot a ton of grad photos. The pressure was on! haha. After I sent Tia the photos, I got a text from her saying that she really loved them and the photos were amazing. I was having a really bad day when I sent her the photos so this message from her really made my day! Another reason why I love photography so much. Make sure to follow Tia on Instagram!