Just about 1.5 hours outside of Orange County lies this beautiful place called Big Bear Lake! If you want some beautiful pine trees, alpine lakes, and stunning landscape, this might be the perfect place for your photos. And why not make a little weekend get away out of it?!

Elvira & Aaron decided they wanted some forest-y vibes for their engagement photos, so we decided to head to the mountains. We had never met prior to the shoot, but we hit it off right away! 🙂

Right when we got there (we had to do a little off roading to get to this spot), there was dust settling in the trees and the sun was shining through it and creating these beautiful rays. By the time we got out of the car and say hi, the rays were gone. We then spent the next 15 minutes trying to recreate it and failed miserably (and got loads of dust in our shoes).

Finally a couple cars came down the street and stirred the dust up and we got those beautiful rays we were looking for! We also were covered in dirt from head to toe at this point, but it was worth it.

Moral of the story: you don’t normally get to see the behind-the-scenes during photoshoots. A lot of patience and getting down and dirty is sometimes what it takes to get the shot!