The Bair family session at the Coronado beach sand dunes

The Bair family session at the Coronado beach sand dunes is one of my favorite stories. I got a call from an ‘805” phone number in early November. I got excited because this was a Southern California area code and I was going to be there for an extended time during the holidays and I wanted to book as much as I could.

Talking to Cindy was so fun and easy and then she asked where I was currently located. I gave her my story, that I am currently going to school in Utah but lived in San Diego before coming to school and that I travel there about once a month. After talking for a few minutes, we finally pinpointed that she is neighbors and good friends with In-laws and had been referred in a group chat for church by two separate people. It was so fun to find our connection and realize we weren’t strangers after all. 

Cindy had awesome inspiration from an anthropology ad, and when I say ad, I mean a color palette used in the graphics of the ad.

I thought that idea was so creative and usually not the scheme I would go for but I love to try something new! We worked back and forth until we landed all the right hues and saturations. Almost everything was from Anthropology and from the different shades of greens, to the touches of hot pink, to the lavenders really tied in all the right colors on the white Coronado sand dunes, speckled with green sea succulents. The simple, colorful garland and wreathe they threw in was the perfect addition to make for a Christmas Card photo. Speaking of Sand Dunes, My favorite part of flying out of San Diego is that from the air, you can see the dunes and all the green sea-weeds on top of them spell out the word CORONADO.

I LOVE being involved in every step of the process, from outfits to moods, to locations. 

Cindy wanted to come over and introduce herself the night before the session and we made final decisions about outfits and other details. When we met on the beach the next day, I learned that the Bair family had moved to San Diego from Thousand Oaks just a few years earlier. I almost asked if she knew a dear friend of mine that is now living in logan who is also from Thousand Oaks, but I quickly thought that there was no way. Turns out, after I posted a picture from our session, they recognized each other on my Instagram I couldn’t believe it. I love when my worlds connect like this.

I love candid shots and will always throw a lot of candid poses in my process.

Cindy would giggle and say, “Shelby, don’t make us look cheesy!” and I just have to say that not a single person in the whole gallery looks cheesy and I would mistake them ALL for supermodels. I had so much fun with this family and we laughed the ENTIRE time, which is my love language if laughter was a love language. My favorite thing about this session is that Cindy’s grandkids call her “CiCi” instead of grandma or nana and I think that is the cutest and most personalized version of grandma. 

This family illuminated with girl power

A strong mother and 5 daughters and daughter-in-law, there is no doubt that this family is full of love and support. At the end of the session, all the girls got together to take a few selfies to post in the 7 days of gratitude leading up to Thanksgiving. I stood back and captured a few of these moments and those shots along with all of the girl poses I got were my favorite of the night.

The Bair family was so fun to work with and I hope I get to work with them year after year.

Shelby Preston

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