Everybody keeps telling me I’m such a lucky man,
Lookin’ at you standing there, I know I am.
Barefoot beauty with eyes that blue,
Sunshine sure looks good on you, I swear.
Oh I can’t believe I finally found ya, baby.
Happy ever after, after all this time.
Oh there’s gonna be some up and downs,
But with you to wrap my arms around, I’m fine.
— ”When You Got a Good Thing”
Lady Antebellum
A lot of my fellow photogs in the Orange County area probably know Tom Pellicer (also known professionally as Thomas Frank Photo). Guess what? Did you also know he’s engaged and just weeks away from whisking his lovely bride-to-be, Heather, off to Hawaii for their nuptials? Even though I won’t be there in Hawaii with them **sigh**, I was able to shoot their engagements on Sunday, June 6th. We met in Newport Beach, just around the corner from Dane Sanders‘ studio, where a lot of local OC photogs meet once a month to discuss items that challenge us as aspiring professional photographers (whether it be business, technical, etc — If you want to know more and you’re in Orange County, look into the FastTrack Photographers’ group on FB, it’s a fantastic resource and support group!).
I actually met Tom before we moved in the same photographic circles. We happened to sit next to each other in a room of approximately 700 people in attendance for a Scott Kelby day-long lecture on Lightroom at the Los Angeles Convention Center. A year-and-a-half later… We’re having a blast while I’m shooting his “e-sesh”! (Like the lingo? Yeah, I’m hip like that.)
Tom & Heather actually met back in high school and dated briefly after graduation, but it wasn’t until running into each other years later at the movie store that they were both single and started dating again. Several years later, they’re engaged and so cute together… Tom’s silly side comes out around Heather, and Heather’s bright blue eyes are engaging (see what I did there? “engaging”??) and they always twinkle with a smile. They’re going to be a fantastic married couple and I’m so happy for them! Not to mention, Heather was a rockin model — she struck one awesome pose after another! Definitely impressive. Tom was a little uneasy at first, as I know from personal experience: it’s hard when the photographer becomes the photographee! But, after just a few minutes with Heather, he was a natural for the camera too. They crack each other up constantly, and as a result, I got a lot of pictures of them laughing… which are some of my favorites!
As many of you who live in Orange County know (beach-adjacent, especially), we are often subject to conditions known as “May Gray” and “June Gloom”, where the marine layer rolls in early every morning from over the ocean and covers the Southland in a blanket of soft, but sometimes dreary, light. It often burns off in the afternoons, but can roll back in, in the late afternoon or early evening. This was the whole reason I brought along my off-camera flash, for a little drama in some of our images, because as I drove towards the beach, it was like hitting a thick gray wall of cloud cover!
Please help me in wishing Tom & Heather congrats in advance, with much happiness with their upcoming dream wedding in Hawaii! And, also check out Tom’s rockin senior photos site here.
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