Where to Take Maternity Photos in Orange County

Strands. Worth the stairs.

Maternity · Orange County

Five spots, sorted by the walk. And the bathroom.

Here's the thing nobody puts in a photo locations post: where the bathroom is. I've decided to make it my whole personality. By the third trimester the bathroom stops being a detail and becomes the itinerary, and the last thing you need is to hike a mile to a gorgeous spot, look around, and realize the only option is the ocean. The ocean is not an option.

So here are five spots I've actually shot maternity sessions at, sorted by how far you'll walk, with the bathroom situation for every one of them. That part turned out to be harder to find out than the parking.

Fair warning: my sessions move. We walk, we wander, we find the light, we keep going. Nobody stands still long enough to get bored or stiff, and that's the whole trick. It's also why the walk matters.

Easiest first. Stairs last.

Flat Small hills Ramp One steep bit Stairs

The dots are the walk. One is flat. Five is stairs. The three colours under each photo are what the light looks like there.

01Flat

Aliso and Wood Canyons, Laguna Niguel

the walk

SageTrunk brownSoft cream

Aliso and Wood Canyons, Laguna Niguel, all flat, all shade.

The easiest walk on this list, and it's not even a contest. Park in the Awma Road lot, feed three dollars into a machine that takes ones, quarters and a card and nothing else, ever, and walk on. No hills. None. I checked twice so I could warn you and came back with nothing.

It's trees and chaparral, wood-chip paths, a picnic area, and trails that go on a lot longer than we ever will. Great for shade, less great for sunsets. The light goes soft and green under there and then it goes home early, so we start a little sooner and treat it as a slow green afternoon instead of a golden one. The lot closes at sunset, which is fine, because by then we're done and you're deciding where to get tacos. Rained this week? The trails close for a few days after, so this one's a dry-week pick.

BathroomYes, but only in the visitor center, and only while the visitor center is open. That's 9 to 3:30 on weekdays and 9 to 2 on weekends. After that it's you and the chaparral. Plan accordingly, which is a polite way of saying go before we walk in.

Good forThe easiest walk in the county, shade the whole way, and a tree to lean on every ten feet.

Noodles · Editor in Chief

I've reviewed the swatches. For the record, I see blues and greens fine and everything warm turns grey. So the sage checks out. The "gold" is a rumor.

02Small hills

Serrano Creek Park, Lake Forest

the walk

EucalyptusWarm gapsBark

The Mulvey family, Serrano Creek Park, one very fast four-year-old.

Street parking on Serrano Road, then a small hill down into the park. Then a small hill here and there on the trail, none worth a warning, all getting mentioned because I promised I'd mention every hill. Enormous eucalyptus trees, big open patches of light between them, and a stable next door, so there's a decent chance a horse ends up in your photos. I don't charge extra for the horse.

The Mulvey session here was wild, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Their son was four and had the energy of a wind-up bunny somebody had wound a little too far. My focus tracking got the workout of its life, and so did my knees. I stayed calm, mostly let him lead, and kept everybody moving, which is my whole trick with kids. A four-year-old who isn't bored is a four-year-old who's laughing. What we got was an hour of a whole family cracking up with a bump in the middle of it.

If you're bringing the kids, this is the one. There's room to run and not much to fall off of.

BathroomYes, in exactly one spot, down by the playground. The park has a dozen places I like to shoot and one of them is near a bathroom, so we plan the route like a road trip. Bathroom first, scenery second.

Good forDoing the whole thing comfortably, and families where the new baby isn't the first and the old baby has opinions.

03Ramp

Little Corona del Mar

the walk

Gold rockBacklightSlate water

Little Corona del Mar, the cliffs going gold.

Free street parking on Ocean Boulevard at Poppy, which in Corona del Mar is a competitive sport with no referee. No stairs. It's a long paved ramp, easy going down and a bit of a hill coming back, the kind where you say "this is fine" out loud.

The light here moves with the calendar, which nobody tells you. In summer the sun ducks behind the cliffs before it hits the water, so we either catch it peeking out from behind the rocks or work in the soft shade with the cliffs going gold behind you. In winter it sets way out over the water and you get the big, wide-open backlight. Both are good. They're just different sessions, and your due date more or less picks which one you're getting. The baby's already making decisions.

BathroomHalfway down the ramp. At thirty-six weeks that's not a detail, that's the headline. Little Corona wins this category and it isn't close.

Good forA gown, some movement, and the ocean doing most of the work while we take the credit.

04One steep bit

Carbon Canyon Redwoods, Brea

the walk

Grove darkTen min goldBark

The Ramirez family, Carbon Canyon redwoods, the ten minutes.

There are two ways in, and you're choosing between a hill and a bathroom. Option one: park free on the street at the Redwood Grove trailhead in the neighborhood, short walk in, one steep section, no bathroom. Option two: pay at the Carbon Canyon Regional Park entrance, three dollars on a weekday and five on a weekend, longer walk but flat the whole way, and there are bathrooms inside the park. I usually do option one. At thirty-eight weeks I'd do option two and not think twice. I've timed the neighborhood walk at seven minutes. Katie has opinions about that number. See below.

I grew up in Phoenix, where a tree is a reason to park at the far end of the lot just so your car can sit in the shade. So a redwood grove in Orange County still feels like a mistake somebody should have caught. And it sort of was. You know how a bank used to give you a toaster for opening a checking account? In the seventies, a bank around here gave you a redwood seedling. When the promotion ended they had a pile left over, so they handed them to the county, the county stuck them in the ground the year the park opened, and now there are about 240 of them, the tallest close to a hundred feet, on a sprinkler schedule five days a week because this is Brea and not Humboldt. Nobody seems to remember which bank. The trees are doing fine either way.

It's the least beachy spot on this list by a wide margin. For most of the hour it's dark, green and quiet in there, and a good ten degrees cooler than the street. Then the sun drops low behind the trunks and for maybe ten minutes the light comes through sideways and the whole grove goes gold. Then it's gone, like it never happened. If we're set up and waiting for it, you get what the Ramirez family got. If we're chatting by the car, we get very nice pictures of trees and a story about the ten minutes we missed.

BathroomOnly if you come in through the park and pay the five dollars. Cheapest bathroom decision you'll make all year.

Good forEarlier in the pregnancy, and anyone who wants photos taken in a forest that started as a checking-account bonus.

Katie · from the passenger seat

He says seven minutes. It's seven minutes at his pace, and he walks like he's late for something.

05Stairs

Strands Beach, Dana Point

the walk

Cliff shadowSun off waterWet sand

Strands Beach, Dana Point, before the stairs.

Strands isn't the prettiest beach on this list. It's the biggest. That cliff over the water is the most majestic thing in Dana Point, and the photos from down there look like nowhere else in the county. It's the spot that makes people say "wait, that's here?"

Two things to know about the beach itself. It's long, but it's only wide at low tide. At high tide there can be no beach at all, just water and a cliff and us looking at a tide chart we should have looked at earlier. And depending on the year and what the waves have been up to, it can get rocky. So this one gets booked around the tide, not around the sunset.

Parking is free, in the lot at the top of the bluff off Selva. Then it's stairs. Stairs down, stairs back up, and it is a very long set of stairs. I've counted them. I get a different number every time, which says something about the stairs or about me.

I've done Strands with a client who was pregnant and, it turned out, in much better shape than me. She took the stairs back up like they'd personally offended her. Her husband and I were somewhere behind her, breathing, and she was the only one of the three of us carrying a passenger. I'd love to tell you I let her win. I'd love to tell you a lot of things.

If that's not where you're at right now, pick a different spot. No hard feelings, and no worse photos either way. The cliff will still be there next time. It's been there a while.

BathroomAt the top by the lot, and at the bottom of the stairs. So the bathroom is either before the stairs or after the stairs, and there is no version of this where the stairs aren't involved.

Good forThe big bluff frames, earlier in the pregnancy, at low tide, and anyone who wants a story for the birth announcement.

Still deciding when? Here's when to take maternity and newborn photos. Wondering what to wear? That's here. And if you're looking for a spot for the whole family rather than the bump, the road trip post has twenty-four of them.

Pick the walk that fits the week you're in. I'll plan the light around it, keep us moving, and carry the bag. And I'll know where the bathroom is.

See maternity sessions