Top 10 Photographers on West Coast, USA
The West Coast doesn't have just one type of light. The golden late-afternoon glow over Napa's vineyards in Wine Country looks nothing like the marine fog rolling through the Presidio in San Francisco, and both look nothing like the desert heat in Palm Springs or the volcanic drama of Hawaii. More than one of these photographers keeps returning to these destinations for work. The ten photographers on this list have built their careers around this diverse range of light and landscape. Some have been based in a single Bay Area suburb for decades, while others split their time between California and other continents entirely. Their paths are just as varied: a former photo editor from India who once dreamed of shooting wildlife; a photojournalist who covered breaking news before shooting weddings; a homeschooled teenager who taught herself lighting on YouTube; and a graphic designer from Bulgaria who discovered film photography by accident in Prague. However, what ties them together isn't geography or biography. It's their belief that a wedding gallery should capture the essence of the day, rather than being a staged performance for the camera. Here are ten photographers proving that across the length of the West Coast and well beyond.
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Cassidy O Photos
Cassidy Oberleitner moved from Louisiana to Southern California in 2021 and now runs Cassidy O Photos. This leap reignited her love of travel and fashion, eventually shaping her career as a photographer. "Transitioning from a career in fashion has helped me develop my photography perspective and differentiate my unique style," she says, describing the five years she spent fully immersed in wedding photography, following a lifetime of experience with other forms of photography.
Her work blends documentary and editorial styles, drawing inspiration from film, and spans digital, film, and drone photography. What she enjoys most about her job is the people she meets: "the people I meet, clients and vendors alike, I am very connection forward." She adapts her process to each couple: "some couples prefer to share Pinterest boards with me, while others prefer to trust me entirely with the creative direction." Her advice to herself when she was starting out is simple: "networking is key, but so is kindness and intention, always remain authentic to yourself and your art." Italy and France are at the top of her list of favourite places to shoot.
Kellie Jane Creative
Growing up, photography was a family affair for Kellie Talbert. Both her grandfathers and her father were deeply involved in photography and art before she picked up a camera herself. After eleven years of shooting weddings, she has built Kellie Jane Creative around a style that she describes as "warm and organic with a strong documentary approach."
Her post-processing philosophy leans towards restraint and light retouching to preserve "colors while still maintaining a unique, nostalgic look." Before every wedding, she sends couples a questionnaire and follows up with a phone call because, in her words, communication and understanding their personalities and family dynamics "are very important to me." Her advice to her younger self is straightforward: "put all your heart behind it, do not feel guilty for living and breathing your art." Based in Palm Springs, she specialises in multi-day wedding weekends and says she "truly loves working anywhere on the West Coast."
The Times We Have
With more than fifteen years' experience in wedding photography, Tae Kim attributes his work to "our never ending thirst for adventure, traveling, discovering new places, and finding happiness in the smallest moments." This restlessness has shaped The Times We Have into a studio built on curiosity: "always looking for those little moments and details that might otherwise go unnoticed."
His style remains "documentary at heart, with an editorial eye," and he shoots on a Sony camera alongside having a genuine love of film's "character and unpredictability." The small, unexpected conversations that happen along the way are what he enjoys most about the job: "there's something beautiful about connecting with a stranger for just a moment, and maybe never seeing them again." When starting out, he drew a hard line between passion and business: "art and business are two different things... if you want to keep doing what you love, your creativity also needs to be sustainable and profitable." Most of his wedding work is on location, and he's drawn to how "open people become when they're somewhere new."
Bona Fide
Liza Dobrynina, who runs her studio as Bona Fide, taught herself photography while being homeschooled and feeling bored. Her sister was her only willing model and YouTube was her only teacher. "I spent a lot of my time playing with lighting, finding inspiration from YouTube videos, and trying anything to scratch the itch in my imagination," she says. This experimentation extended to editing and Photoshop long before she turned it into a career.
She turned professional last September, when she "dropped pre-med classes and took a chance" on herself. She describes her style as feeling "like being transported into your imagination," and she shoots exclusively with a Sony camera, using Lightroom only for editing. She is firmly committed to her creative vision: "to alter my images or my creativity for a job would be dishonest to the client and myself." Her advice to herself when she was starting out was simple: "believe in yourself and your eyes more than anyone else." Lake Como and Scotland remain her favourite places to shoot so far.
Lukas Korynta
Before moving to the US in 2018, Luka Korynta worked as a newspaper journalist in Europe and then turned to wedding photography full time. After eleven years in the industry, he describes his style as "a perfect blend of documentary and editorial," captured using a combination of digital and film cameras tuned to match his own colour palette.
The best thing about the job for him is the access it grants him: "traveling the world, creating art for people, having inside access to so many families." His approach to working with couples is relational first: "I like to be as much inside the inner circle as my couples let me. After trust is gained, I pitch ideas and try to make photos fun and collaborative." His advice to his younger self reads like a personal code: "there should be no ego in wedding photography, serve people well, be a good human first and stay patient, always try to get better each time. Keep that fire alive, don't fall for industry traps." His favourite place to shoot remains anywhere in Europe.
Vivi Lin
Vivi Lin studied and lived in China, South Korea and the United States before earning her Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. This international upbringing still shapes her work today. "Being exposed to different cultures has had a big influence on the way I photograph weddings," she says. "I especially love multicultural celebrations and the little traditions, relationships, and emotions that make each wedding unique."
Her style blends romantic, elegant, timeless and emotionally driven instincts, balancing editorial polish with documentary storytelling. What she enjoys most about the job goes beyond any single photograph: "many of them start as clients, but over time, through all the planning, conversations, and shared experiences, they become friends." Her advice to her younger self is grounded: "be patient and focus less on comparing my journey to everyone else's... communication, reliability, empathy, and the way you make people feel are just as important." Hawaii remains a favourite destination of hers, especially the islands of Lanai and Oahu.
Jake Fosmire
Jake Fosmire describes himself as "a huge photography nerd," splitting his time between weddings, brands, and editorials over a fifteen-year career largely built around Leica film gear. In three words, his style is: "editorial with gesture."
He processes his own film at home "for maximum control over the end result." What he enjoys most about the job is refreshingly simple: "people." His approach to clients starts with alignment: "the biggest thing is just being totally aligned from the start." The advice he would give to his younger self is equally succinct: "focus on the craft, everything else will figure itself out." His advice to couples choosing a photographer is equally straightforward: "hire a photographer that's work you see yourself in." He's open to shooting destination weddings "anywhere."
JC Arts Photography
Jagdeep Singh began his career as a photo editor in India in 2006, aspiring to become a wildlife photographer. However, Indian weddings pulled him in a different direction in 2009. In 2011, he founded JC Arts Photography, describing his style as "Fine Art and Fearless," bold, considered composition paired with a documentary instinct for real moments.
He keeps his editing "clean, timeless and cinematic" to enhance traditional attire while maintaining natural skin tones. The most enjoyable aspect of his job for him is capturing the full emotional range of a wedding day: "bottling the 'hum' of a wedding day, nervous mornings, sacred vows, explosive receptions, into something a couple can revisit for 50 years." His advice to his younger self is straightforward: "just start, and enjoy the work, stop chasing validation from others or online trends." He covers destinations across the US, Mexico and India, among others.
Kat Lui Photography
Kat Lui started out as a studio manager for another photographer while she was still at college, even before she owned a camera herself. She then spent years assisting other wedding photographers, which provided her with an informal education in the field. "Those experiences helped me develop my own approach and taught me how to balance the technical side of photography with the more intuitive, emotional side of documenting people," she says.
Her style blends documentary, editorial and romantic elements to create a nostalgic feel, and is built around what she calls the in-between moments of a wedding day. What she enjoys most about the job is her relationships with her clients: "by the time the wedding arrives, I don't want to feel like a vendor who simply shows up with a camera, I want to feel like a friend or a guest who just happens to have a camera with me." Her favourite part of the process might be unexpected: "editing, I get to relive the entire day all over again." Starting out, she offers herself some warm advice: "trust the process and not compare my journey to anyone else's... my unique perspective is what makes my work valuable." Hawaii remains her favourite destination.
Radostina Boseva
Radostina Boseva was born and raised in Varna, a coastal town in Bulgaria, where she earned a Master's degree in Arts. She then moved to the Czech Republic to work in graphic design, styling and art direction. It was there that her passion for film photography developed, eventually pulling her fully away from editorial work and into wedding photography after she relocated to San Francisco. "I am Radostina," she says. "I try to photograph people in an interesting and artistic way, capturing genuine emotion and unscripted moments."
Now, more than a decade and 150-plus couples into her career, she shoots almost entirely on analogue film, which she develops and edits entirely by hand. "I photograph the version of you that only exists on this one day," she says. "Everything on film, everything edited by hand, by me. I take very few weddings a year, because that's the only way to do it properly." She considers getting to know a couple to be the most important part of the job: "some couples need quiet and careful, some need an energy bomb, I figure out which one you are, usually before the first coffee is gone." Her directness is part of the package, by design: "I'm direct. It's an East European thing. You'll always know what I think, and when I tell you your wedding was beautiful, you'll know I mean it."
From Napa's golden late light to San Francisco's rolling fog, Palm Springs' desert glare and Hawaii's volcanic coastline, the West Coast never settles into one visual identity, and neither do the ten photographers who have built careers documenting it. Some started out in fashion, journalism or graphic design before ever picking up a camera professionally, while others taught themselves using YouTube tutorials and patient siblings as models. Some have logged more than a decade and hundreds of weddings, while at least one made her first professional booking barely a year ago. What they all have in common, though, is a refusal to let technique take precedence over truth: however editorial the final gallery appears, the moment itself always comes first. Whether the day unfolds in a Sonoma vineyard, a city hall downtown, or a stone church in Bulgaria, these are ten photographers who know how to capture a wedding exactly as it is. You can get to know wedding photographers from across the West Coast on Wezoree and contact them directly to start the conversation.
