Welcome to my new blog..
I'm a wife, a mother, a teacher and a photographer. These are just a few words that define who I am. The love of cooking and international cuisine give me inspiration along with sweet memories of cooking with my Sicilian grandmother Eleanor. Homemade manicotti, spaghetti sauce with homemade meatballs cooking for hours, and Italian wedding soup are just a few of the dishes served at my house. Whether cooking, teaching, or taking pictures, my spontaneity, passion and creativity will be unleashed.
You can see more of my work on my portfolio website (miamarisa.com). Please follow me on twitter and @reply me or contact me by email so that I know who you are. :) Cheers!
Jeanie and Edward were such a joy to photograph, along with their two beautiful daughters. The balloons and sunflowers were so fun to incorporate into our shoot. It took awhile for the little one to warm up, but once she did I couldn’t get enough. Their oldest daughter was so sweet and gave me the absolute best smiles. Enjoy this beautiful family!
My dear friends wanted me to come again and document their family, mainly the kids, especially since they have a new little guy, almost a year old. I took their family pictures over a year ago at their home when it was just the four of them, click here to view. The kids are always so comfortable in their own surroundings, and it was fun to do the shoot again at their beautiful home in California Heights. Jen told me she wanted me to get lots of close-ups of the kids eyes, feet, and hands. It was fun to bust out the macro lens for this shoot. I love you guys!
This family is so special to me for so many reasons. Harold is the Pastor of our church, Cerritos Presbyterian Church (CPC) and Sun Hi is his beautiful wife. We’ve been attending CPC for 1 year now, and became members last October. We are continually blessed by the teaching and fellowship. Sun Hi has such a servant’s heart, as it’s common to see her each Sunday morning helping out some of the Mamas and getting her hands on one of the sweet little babies. Their daughters are precious little girls with so much spunk and personality. We had so much fun yesterday walking around one of my favorite neighborhoods in Long Beach. Thank you Kim family for such a wonderful evening and for being such a blessing to me and my family. We love you!
I love this one. Sun Hi, you have such a beautiful smile.
You can just see the love in his eyes for his little girls.
This one is so sweet.
I look forward to this time of year because of the delicious fruit our apricot tree bears. I’ve been looking forward to gathering some fruit and doing a little shoot with my sweet girls. Here are a few I took of them this afternoon.
Me and my girls had fun on our mini Easter photo shoot. After nap time, I packed up the girls and headed over to a sweet little spot near my house. The baby was such a great model. Eva got to use my old Rebel camera for the first time and loved it. She was more excited about taking pictures than modeling. Enjoy my girls! I love them sooooo much!
I think she has the photography bug now too! Her pictures were great. I’ll post them soon. 
It was such a beautiful day. The sunny California weather had finally returned after many weeks of cold and rain, and we decided to head out to fly our trick kite that Jeff bought many years ago. It seemed like a perfect afternoon, just enough wind to make our kite fly. But, once we got near the beach it seemed as if the wind had gone. We tried over and over again to get it to fly, but it just wouldn’t. Even though we didn’t get to see our kite take off, we had fun letting the girls run around, and watching them do somersaults. With our busy lives I’ve really learned to appreciate those simple moments, the time spent just being together, laughing and having fun. Here are some of my favorites from our short outing.
They love giving each other big bear hugs.
I love these next three.
It has been awhile since I had time to put a shoot together. The idea started when I was casually looking at InStyle magazine. I saw a page that jumped out at me about fashion week and the 70′s inspired clothing. The day before the shoot the shutter on my 50D stopped working, so I had to rely on my trusty ole’ Rebel XT to do the trick. I’m thankful for back-up equipment, that’s for sure.
The stylist and make-up artist were so amazing. I loved the looks and how it all came together. The stylist came up with four different looks for the girls that blew me away.
Models:
Angel Farwell
Hawanatu Macauley
Stylist:
Kelsey Lovatto (She’s my best friend’s cousin and getting a double-major in Fashion Design and Merchandising.)
Make-up Artist:
Carla Hille
Photographers:
Me ~
Noah Ciccanti
Merissa Garcia
I remember the feelings I had walking up to campus my first day at Baptist Bible College in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. The feelings were mixed as I felt excited yet a little awkward as a transfer student, entering my Junior year, and not knowing a soul. Soon, through the crowd of Freshman mixers, I found my way to those in my year, and made some friends. This became even more challenging as I was one of the few students to be living off campus. Most of the students lived in the dorms. Some of my closest friends were in the same dorm, and the dorm Mom was Sandi. The entire family lived in the dorm, in a separate apartment. Like me, they were from California, and we instantly clicked, and they adopted me as their dorm daughter. Their girls were very young at the time, but as you can see in the photos they have grown up to be not only amazing Christian women, but so incredibly beautiful. I love this family, and I love it even more that they moved back to California and only live about 30 minutes away. This family is full of life, energy and spunk. Their energy was contagious and I had a great time shooting them.
Sandi and Nick, you’ve still got it!
Meet Nicole (These two are so close. I adore their sisterly bond.)
Meet Ashley
This set makes me smile, the connection the three of them have is awesome.
I shared a story with Nick that my pastor had shared that week, about weeping at a wedding as he thought of his own daughters’ walking down the aisle. Let’s just say, Nick held his daughters just a little tighter and really got into the shoot once I shared that story.
Hot, hot, hot!
We had a visitor.
James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows”. I’ve always loved this scripture, and thought of it when I was thinking of Erin and David. Our cousin Erin, recently met an amazing man David. They corresponded long distance for many months. With a few visits between them, her flying to South Carolina, and him coming out here to California, they knew early on that they were meant to be together. On his first visit out to California he proposed and surprised Erin while they were riding a hot air balloon over Temecula Valley.
We couldn’t be happier for them. He has two beautiful daughters, Emily and Rebekah. They’ll all be out here again for the January wedding. But, first they must all endure Thanksgiving with the entire crew. We’ll be easy on him, I’m sure. Let the inquisition begin! We love you guys and we’re so excited to celebrate with you both in January.
You’ll remember one of my very first family portrait sessions of last year titled “Our Neighbors”. Kryssie and Robert called me last week and asked me if I could fit them in for a family shoot, Rockabilly/Retro inspired. I immediately said, “Yes, Yes, Yes!”. I knew it would be a good one. She briefly mentioned what they’d wear, and that she was planning on getting her make-up done. If this doesn’t blow up my blog, then I’m not sure what will, because I think this family looks amazing. Kryssie did her own hair, and she totally rocked the look. She styled the entire family and helped pick the location. I might need to hire this girl, seriously. We love this family so much, and we’re so thankful they are our neighbors.
I seriously had a hard time narrowing my favorites down. You’ll notice we had to include the Mini Cooper for the shoot. So fun!
