SHIMADA FAMILY | A BAY AREA FAMILY PORTRAIT SESSION

The Shimada Family

Family Photography | Poplar Beach | Half Moon Bay, California

Some families are easiest to photograph when you just let them be siblings again, and that's exactly what happened at Poplar Beach with the Shimada family. Grown kids, mom, and their scene-stealing little poodle mix, who had opinions about the whole afternoon and made sure everyone knew it.

We spent most of the session chasing each other down the sand, quite literally, there was running, a piggyback ride nobody asked for, and a lot of laughing at the dog's expense. The cliffs at Poplar Beach gave us that warm, late-day light the whole time, and by the end nobody was posing anymore, just being loud and happy together with their feet in the surf.

If your family (four-legged members included) wants a session that feels more like an afternoon together than a photoshoot, I'd love to plan one with you.

Three siblings sit shoulder to shoulder on a driftwood log at the base of a sandstone bluff, the brother holding their poodle mix on his lap
Mom holds the family poodle mix at the center while her son and two daughters lean in around her, ocean and open sand behind them
Three siblings run barefoot toward the camera across wide open sand while their small brown poodle mix races ahead of them
A young man leaps mid-air above his sister, who sits cross-legged on the sand laughing, with a cypress-topped bluff behind them
Two sisters move through shallow foam at the water's edge, one carrying the poodle mix while the other twists away from an incoming wave
Close portrait of a curly brown poodle mix trotting across sunlit sand with its tongue out and footprints scattered around it
A young woman rides on her brother's back, both laughing, with the eroded sandstone cliffs of Half Moon Bay rising behind them
Mother and daughter stand barefoot in denim on the sand, the daughter holding their small poodle mix, cliffs and hills in the distance
Two sisters stand with arms around each other's shoulders and heads tipped together, one in a white shirt dress and one in denim overalls
Mother and her son stand arm in arm on the sand at Poplar Beach, with waves and coastal hills behind them in late afternoon light
A daughter cradles the family's curly poodle mix while her mom keeps an arm around her, sandstone bluffs and open beach stretching behind

See more of my work for family portraits or check current availability for your own session.