This was my first photo session at the gorgeous and green Los Osos Oaks State Preserve in Los Osos, CA. Stuart and Emily choose to split up their session into two locations for their lush, green engagement session. We started at Los Osos Oaks first to avoid strange shadows from the trees in the pictures. Then we headed to Pirates Cove for the second half, close to golden hour. It was really cool that there wasn’t very many people around, we pretty much had the space all to ourselves. With all the rain we received in March and April it made for a cool forest feel. I remember scouting this location session during a drought and it was depressing.
I’m so excited to photograph Stuart and Emily’s wedding this summer at the See Canyon Fruit Ranch, in Avila Beach, CA. It is the perfect venue for their personalities and is also one of my favorite rustic venues.
An engagement session tip is to bring an additional outfit for your session, especially if you are doing two separate locations. One reason is you want to change up the style and not wear a color that blends into the scenery background. For sunset beach sessions, I always recommend a solid dark color to stand out agaisn’t the beige/light blue and white back ground.
A little history about this cool spot…
In 1769, Gaspar de Portola’s expedition passed through the Los Osos Valley. Father Crespi’s diary notes that the expedition saw “troops of bears (osos)” in the valley, and, since then, it became known as the Los Osos Valley. When the new Monterey mission populace faced starvation, a hunting expedition was sent to the Los Osos Valley, killed many grizzlies, and packed the meat back to Monterey, saving the people there from disaster.
Los Osos Oaks was part of a Mexican land grant that was eventually divided into farm and ranch land. Incredibly, unlike the trees in the surrounding area which were cleared away to allow for agriculture, the magnificent oaks in the park are still growing.
