Meet Michelle

San diego and worldwide lifestyle photographer

Why I Never Want You to Feel the Way I Did

The day I realized this was meant for me

I’d been photographing landscapes since high school, but I didn’t pick up my camera for families until my daughter was three. That Mother’s Day, I booked a mini session with a local photographer so I’d have something special to gift the grandmas.

The day before the session, she cancelled on me — no warning, no backup plan. I was irritated, stressed, and staring down the possibility of showing up to Mother’s Day empty-handed. Then I remembered… I know my way around a camera too.

So I grabbed my daughter, headed to the beach, and did our own little session. The photos? Honestly, not half bad (if I do say so myself). Soon I was taking pictures for friends, and just like that, a new passion was born.

So thank you, local photographer, for cancelling on me — you gave me the push I didn’t know I needed.

I had just quit my job to be a stay at home mom, so I was trying to be practical and save money. And professional maternity portraits weren’t practical, so I thought I was being smart. Plus, we were planning more children, so the next pregnancy, I told myself, we would invest. You know that old saying about how man makes his plans, and God laughs? Well, you can guess the way this story goes. Despite our “efforts,” and the efforts of modern science, there was no next pregnancy.

You see that beautiful bathroom selfie? That’s the very best photo I have of myself pregnant.

All I have to remember that incredibly precious, fleeting time in our lives by (awaiting this little girl we had wanted so badly) is reflected in a smudgy mirror.

My little family