Ava’s Mission Report and Photo Shoot at California’s Mission Carmel

Every year I try to do a new photo shoot for my daughter, Ava’s, birthday. Nothing crazy but something that shows her personality at that particular age in her life so that we can have both beautiful portraits as well as saving the “who she is” of that age. My ultimate goal being a really nice book of 18 or so years of photo shoots to give to her when she leaves home. (Frickin crap! I just wrote that and instant tears gushing out of my eye balls) Ok let’s not talk about the last photo shoot at 18….and….we’re moving on! 🙂 With this year being her 10th birthday I really wanted to do something that we would both remember and would be fun but, for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a single idea….until she came home with her first big report….I completely forgot that 4th graders have to do a Mission report. BINGOOOO!! I’m obsessed with the beauty and history of missions so I figured this would be perfect! It’ll always remind us that at 10 she was in 4th grade and had the mission project.  It’ll be a fun day out just me and my girl road trippin’ to gorgeous Carmel, California. We’ll visit the Carmel Mission aka Mission San Carlos Borroméo del río Carmelo, learn about the mission, take pictures (as her report selection cause there was no way I was building a model, thank goodness they have options now a day), and then as the sun sets she’d change clothes and hop into photo shoot mode, perfect!

Except…. I always manage to forget that the minute it gets cold or she’s just done, then she’s done and there’s no saving it. Obviously the report was the most important thing so we toured the mission and learned all about it. She used my old camera, photographed everything and had a blast doing it! I thought for sure she was going to love actually being in the photographs. We had a couple different outfits with a old mission look with a modern twist, stylish props, a whole hair idea….I mean it was going to be epic. Until it got a teensy bit chilly and we were a couple hours in and the minute I said ok let’s do the photo shoot and she was like um no. Breathe mama, BREATHE!!! I said look kid, we are 2 hours away from home, in the beautiful town of Carmel, with the intention of shooting your 10th birthday pictures, you are most certainly NOT DONE. Get it together because this IS happening! Well it happened but with very few smiles and mostly sad, poor me, looks on her face, hair disheveled….glad I brought a hat. BUT this is her age, they are stubborn and when kids are done, they are done and the whole point of these shoots is to capture who she is so I went with it. I got a few “Ava” poses and personality but the shoot lasted about a 1/4 of the time and ideas I had intended on. The light was crazy and there was a ton of color casts in post I had to manage so I will confess these are not my favorite pictures of her and certainly not at all what I had envisioned BUT with that said, I wanted pictures of her at the mission, I wanted a fun day with her, I wanted memories to be created…..I got everything I ultimately wanted for this day just a little differently than I had planned on but I truly am grateful we had this opportunity and that being a photographer I now have these portraits and memories forever.

On our way home we stopped at a beach in Seaside, California and waited for the sun to drop and for Ava’s mood to change. (haha!) She loved photographing the Pacific Ocean as the sun was dropping and was in awe watching at the waves come in hard slamming against the shore. I realized I don’t take her often enough to the beach so this year my goal is the hit a new beach at least once a month. I mean we live in California and we NEVER go to the beach, how crazy is that!! I think I’m also realizing that in just 8 short years she can leave home and I really don’t want to regret not having done as much stuff together as possible. Anyways, I digress, so before the beach there are these amazing sand dunes and because it was February they were covered in all different colored shrubbery and plants from all the rain we’ve had, it was seriously stunning! I added a picture in here because you have to see how beautiful it is….and you should really go here and check it out for yourself! You won’t regret it.

Ok so I know this is a crazy long post. If you made it this far thanks for hanging in there through all my babbling! I decided instead of putting this into different blog posts, I’d just post everything here from our day. The first section is the actual photo shoot, the second is our trip to the town of Seaside to check out the ocean and lastly are the pictures we took of the Carmel Mission for Ava’s 4th grade mission report. This mission is REALLY beautiful so if you have an upcoming 4th grader, I hope this gives you an idea of the mission and inspires you to go check it out. There’s really no better way to learn about a mission than to go there yourself.

AND if anyone wants to do a photo shoot at the mission while you’re there, message me and I’d be happy to set something up with you!

Happy Travels! ~~

For more information on the Carmel Mission click HERE.