san francisco bay area maternity, child and family photographer

portrait of a one year old in banganga

alpana — Mon, 07 May 2012 17:24:18 +0000

Am back from my short trip to India! My stay was mainly in Mumbai vising family, attending a wedding, shopping and a little bit of shoot time that included a fabulous e-shoot. This set of photos were taken at Banganga tank which is surrounded by four hundred year old temples. With the sun setting at Banganga just as I was ready to leave, I spotted some kids on the steps. The littlest was a one year old girl adorning “kohl” or eye make up. These are from my ten minutes trying to capture her alone as the other kids popped in and out of the frame:-)

india calling…

alpana — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:30:25 +0000

I am off to enjoy my homeland for a couple of weeks. I am sure time will fly by and I will be back before too long. This is my first solo trip after eight years (since my son was born) and am excited to have some time for some creative projects. I will stay largely unplugged and respond to emails/calls around May 7th.

Here is a recent photo from my very first foray into shooting with a medium format camera. Mamiya 645 + Porta!

hide and seek

alpana — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 15:34:12 +0000

i busted out the film camera to finish off this roll of film. the light was beautiful but challenging.

i shot around thirteen frames and eight or more are keepers. the rest are silly faces. he was pretty patient with me this time. the first picture in this series happens to be my favorite of him in a long time.

i love film!

one little monkey…

alpana — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 23:02:53 +0000

…jumping on the bed. I just found the jumping photos as I was prepping the blog post from this family’s portrait session. The six year old and I got to have a little hangout as my son would call it. He jumped on the bed when no one was looking. Nothing like letting off some energy for an active kid and these are the real moments that make for some pretty cool images. And also a great addition for a signature album. They aren’t in this client’s gallery as I typically show 25-40 images in a gallery. If a client orders an album, I end up adding images not in the gallery to help tell the story of the day. I am asked about this quite often and thought I would share it in this blog post.

Back to this lovely family’s portrait session. We finally got a date down after some sickness in the early months. As luck would have it, PG&E randomly decided to turn off power that day. The family decided to roll with the punches after some back and forth and it turned out to be a great decision. Mom was worried about not having lights working. That wasn’t an issue as I work with natural light. The main issue would have been a freezing house which wasn’t the case and the little five month old was such an amazing little model too. The family will forever remember the day of the shoot and have that story to tell

out of office

alpana — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:54:19 +0000

All I have to say is that the boy made me work for this picture. An ode of sorts to Sally Maan, one of my all time favorite photographers. Recently, I got to see, listen and experience her amazingness in San Francisco. She spoke largely about her body of family work offering insight into her family and their lives providing context to her art. I came back inspired with the resolve to try to be true to myself as an artist. I will be in Tampa for a workshop and a family photo shoot from March 24-29th. Stay warm in the bay area!

st. paddy’s day cupcakes

alpana — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:12:37 +0000

from our trip to the local farmer’s market.

circle of love

alpana — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 16:22:41 +0000

This year, I had made a resolve to donate a few sessions for those that would not be able to afford the luxury of a custom portrait session. When my friend mentioned her involvement with a non-profit that works with victims of domestic abuse), I thought it would be amazing to create a story-telling portrait session for a family in the program. Here are some images from that session.
Please do not share the photos without permission!

love monkey

alpana — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:41:12 +0000

Two monkeys, two hearts come together to celebrate Valentine’s Day! Have a wonderful one.

ayla II

alpana — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:30:10 +0000

hair makeover in a pinterest shirt

alpana — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 22:21:45 +0000

I stumbled upon a “hair makeover”in progress and grabbed my camera for some quick shots. A few more on the facebook page if you want to take a peek. Talking about Pinterest, have you checked it out? It is a great place to explore and share visual inspiration from the web. And if you fancy checking out my boards to see what inspires me or catches my fancy click here.