Diego is fantastic! We had a family wedding at our home and after a search I chose Diego for his…read morecreative photography. Leading up to the wedding Diego was easy to communicate with and made sure he understood how we wanted the photos for the special day. The wedding day was very rainy, Diego worked expertly to manage the light for great photos indoors and out. He then asked if he could come back on a sunny day to get more outdoor shots and WOW they are great photos. He is a pleasure to work with. I recommend him highly and without reservation. Thank you, Diego!

Diego has been my portrait photographer in 2018 and 2019. I love his positive energy and artistic…read moreideas. I dont like pics taken and he can make me feel at ease. If you are looking for an artistic portrait he is the man! thank you Diego! see you again soon! ron

My husband and I are extremely dissatisfied with Elyse Destout Photography…read more Short version: Due to Elyse's poor photography skills/choices, lack of communication and inability to reschedule a photoshoot in a timely manner I will never have the beautiful infant photos that every other family seems to have of their family's newest addition. I am deeply saddened, as this is something I can never get back. I can't express how upset this situation has made me. Long version: I scheduled a photoshoot for my newborn, she was 2 weeks old at the time of the shoot. The studio was beautiful so I was very excited. Instead of photographing my daughter against pulled down backgrounds, Elyse set us up against her studio's wall (no background). Out of 70 photos there were maybe 2 that I was in love with... But the background was stucco and chipped paint!! IT RUINED ALL THE PHOTOS. They looked like I had taken them in my living room. I mentioned this to Elyse and she offered to reschedule. I tried scheduling a shoot immediately since my daughter was already 1 month old by this time. It took Elyse 2 full weeks to respond to my email. I tried calling but was unable to leave a voice message because her inbox was full. She never attempted to call me back. When she finally did email me back with one available time slot (on a day I had previously said I couldn't do), I emailed back asking for any other options. This time, she NEVER responded! I sent her a couple more emails but by the time my daughter was 2.5 months old I threw my hands up and emailed Elyse asking for a full refund. She called me immediately, literally 5 minutes after sending the email - where was this sense of urgency before?? I let it go to voicemail because I was so upset about the whole situation that I was already in tears. She left a message apologizing, telling me she's been sick, and wanted to offer the "year of photos" for no additional charge because she DOES NOT give cash refunds. I emailed her shortly after explaining that I was very disappointed - I had paid $150 for this service. I declined the full year of photos because I couldn't imagine dealing with this level of unprofessionalism for a full year. Instead I chose 40 of the horribly executed pictures to receive digital prints of (what the original package was). She ended up releasing all 70 digital prints to me, but that means nothing to me since I only wanted 2 in the first place. I will never leave such precious photos in her hands again, and I recommend you do some more research before booking her. I've been kicking myself for not writing her off after the first two week gap in communication and going to another photographer. But $150 is more than I could afford on leisurely purchased right now, especially with a newborn in the house.

My new wife and I were married on 09/14/13 and we chose Elyse to be our wedding photographer. Let…read moreme just start by saying it was an awesome wedding and she captured it exactly as we pictured it. I highly recommend Elyse Destout as a photographer for your wedding. We have had nothing but compliments from our family and friends who have all said that she was very friendly and professional. We found her at a local wedding expo at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk early in the year and we were so impressed by her photography and her personality that we booked her on the spot. She is great at not only getting all the typical staged shoots but she also as an amazing eye for getting the candid shoots as well. She is able to capture the perfect moments and she can do post production on any of the pictures to make them black and white, sepia, of pops of color from a single item. She even threw in a photo booth for the day of our wedding and it was an amazing success. Our guests loved the booth and had tons of fun taking pictures. She was very reasonable with her pricing and has tons of different packages depending on what you are looking to get. If you are looking for a wedding photographer in the Santa Cruz area I would highly recommend considering Elyse!

This review is 4 years overdue but Ben was there to help capture my wife and I's engagement. Not…read moreonly was he super professional but he was extremely helpful in picking the perfect spot. If you're looking for incredible photography work, Ben is the best option. You won't be disappointed!

Ben was super friendly and easy to work with! We both are introverted but this photo session came…read morenaturally and was so fun :) Our engagement photos came out so well and we are excited to work with him again for our wedding in a couple of weeks :D

We used Ed and Nancy photography for a family reunion. Our pictures came out fantastic! The quality…read moreof the pictures have a ethereal vibe! We were a large group of 20 people and of varying ages. Ed and Nancy were patient and had fabulous ideas on how to pose and look natural. They also suggest a great spot to take the pictures. Warm and friendly and super responsive all the way from setting up the appointment to showing up on time and delivering the pictures way before the date we were expecting them. I would highly recommend them! And plan on using them again soon!

We contacted Ed and Nancy because our friends had taken photos with them and we loved their photos…read more Ed and Nancy were able to schedule a photo session with us a week before we were in town. They gave us samples of a variety of colors which would suit the scenery and this was so helpful. They were very quick in responding/communication before during and after the session and we felt that they not only considered our ideas about the session but truly understood us as a family. We are so so happy with their work and highly recommend them. Their professionalism is clear in everything they do. We are grateful for the experience and the memories to last a lifetime! Hope to have more sessions with them again in the future!

Cannot say enough great things about Julie! She took our wedding photos at Folktale Winery in Nov…read more23. She helped us work through weather challenges, with pouring rain complicating our plans. She did a great job of identifying alternative options to capture photos with our guests, and then finding an opportune moment later on during the event when my husband and I could slip outside and take some photos when it was dry. I also appreciated her incorporation of candid photos along with the staged photos. We got great pictures with all of our guests, as well as pictures of all the décor and the location. She was also lovely to work with, and kept checking in to ensure we were capturing everything we wanted. Highly recommend!

If I could give more stars to Julie I would! My husband and I felt so incredibly lucky to have…read moreJulie photograph us for our wedding in Carmel in October. Our wedding planner gave Julie's information to us along with a couple of other photographers when we were trying to secure a vendor. I loved Julie's style, so we set up a phone consultation to see if it would be a good match for us. We knew right away that Julie would be perfect for us as we clicked right away in our phone conversation. We set up an engagement session with Julie prior to our wedding and that solidified our decision in knowing we had picked the perfect photographer. Julie is funny, down to earth, and extremely talented. She was easy to be around and nothing ever felt too poised. The photos that we got in our final gallery are absolutely beautiful and we have a hard time picking our favorites because we love them all! Julie also went above and beyond normal photographer duties at one point helping to steam my dress and also offered us a free session at a later date when both of my parents could not attend our wedding last minute due to testing positive with COVID. I'm sure there was also much more behind the scenes that I didn't even see. I was really hoping to have a special connection with our wedding photographer and have it be someone that we would want to use again and again over the years after we hopefully grow our family. We are so happy to have found Julie and I would recommend her to anyone looking for a photographer for any type of occasion.

We used Rebecca Stark for our micro ceremony and wedding reception (two seperate days). We loved…read moreour photos from both days and loved how easy it was to get along with Rebecca. She did a great job dealing with the harsh sun of our micro ceremony and helping us feel comfortable taking photos. Our sunset photos from our reception are beautiful. She was a great choice!

Rebecca photographed our recent wedding on West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz. she took stunning…read morephotographs, before, during, and after the ceremony. She made sure to get many different poses, candid and staged, and included the ocean view and cliffs that we had requested. We ended up with around 150 high quality photos, and she provided them in a gallery we could share with people, and also downloadable in hi-res for printing and sharing online. Highly recommended!

I hired Alex in June 2026 to photograph my surprise proposal in San Francisco. First of all, the…read morephotos are stunning - he captured the moment in such a compelling and thoughtful way. He perfectly blended into the environment and helped the big moment feel natural. In addition, working with Alex was great. I was a bit apprehensive since I had never hired a photographer before, but he made the process very easy. He responded to my inquiry right away, and we got on a call the next day to finalize the details. It was just one less thing to worry about leading up to the big day! The photos were delivered ahead of schedule and I couldn't be happier about how they turned out.

Such an amazing experience. Beginning to end Alex was responsive and attentive to our wishes and…read morehopes for the photos. From our pre-wedding photo prints, to the day of performance, he's always trying to make sure we are happy with the photos we're getting. He posed us, helped us keep our clothes as nice as they could be considering the venue we chose, and made sure we were having fun taking photos we will remember for the rest of our lives.