Elyse Destout
As a Santa Cruz County native, I have been surrounded by beauty and nature my entire life. Growing up, family was very important to me, and I cherished the relationships I had with each of my relatives. My parents are artists and introduced me to the creative world of their art community at a very young age. It wasn't a surprise later in life that photography found me, and I built a business that combined my deep appreciation of family, art and my love of nature. I began my career by photographing families in natural settings all around the Monterey Bay Area and, shortly after, started photographing weddings. Having devoted nearly two decades to refining my skills, I can truly say that I am doing what I was meant to do. My goal is to connect with each of my clients and capture the essence of their unique personality while creating beautiful images that can be cherished for a lifetime.
The Team
I have worked with many talented photographers over the years and have gathered a group of very unique, diverse and successful women. These individuals not only have their own photography and cinematography business but they have teamed up with me as I have grown my own business over the past decade. Meet my team…
Julie Hasen
When Julie was 14 she had her fist experience in a darkroom. When she saw how a latent image emerged from nothing, under the gentle agitation of the developer, she was hooked. It was love at first sight. Once she was 16, she was old enough to take darkroom classes herself and eventually earned an Associate degree in Art Photography. In 2009 I met Julie and gave her, her first job in the photography industry at my photo lab in Watsonville. With her education and style rooted in traditional film photography, Julie started photographing weddings in 2010. While she also enjoys landscapes, still life, and abstract photography, it’s hard to beat the feeling that comes from perfectly capturing an intimate moment in time.
Chiara Aiello
Chiara was born and raised in Santa Cruz, California, she developed her love for photography at a young age. Chiara grew up riding horses and first by capturing the beauty of horses in action, and then the horses with their riders which fed into her love for portrait photography. Portraits are her passion and with that, she found a love for wedding photography as well. She is currently going on her fourth year as a wedding photographer. She is a double major student of Criminal Justice and Psychology at Loyola University of Chicago. She divides her time shooting between portraits in Chicago, and portraits and weddings in Santa Cruz, mainly through the summer season. Through her work she tries to enhance and bring to light the confidence and strength of her muse and capture the dramatic beauty, and in weddings the dynamics of the love couples share on such a special day.
Danielle Chandler
Danielle grew up in Carmel and now lives in Aptos with her husband where they are both full time videographers, photographers, and artists. This will be Danielle's 5th wedding season focusing primarily on wedding videography while also keeping her personal brand photography going for maternity, newborn, event photography, and portraits. Danielle is passionate about capturing once in a lifetime wedding moments on high quality film to cherish forever. Danielle style is whimsy, heartfelt, young, and fun.