The Orange County Photo Location Road Trip
Every one of these is a place I've actually stood in with a camera, usually at the exact moment the light went good. Not a list I found on somebody else's blog. Twenty four stops, running north to south down the county, with notes on the light, the tides, the crowds, and whether the dog can come.
Steal it for your own weekend photos if you want. I genuinely don't mind.
The Key
My sessions have names instead of numbers, because Package B has never once described an afternoon. Every stop says which one it's built for.
The classic one. Your people, good light, room to breathe.
An afternoon doing something you'd have done anyway.
Seniors and grads. One location, one outfit, one vibe.
The bigger senior day. Several stops, several sides of you.
Just the two of you, somewhere you already like being.
The Beaches
Golden hour on the sand, salt air, open sky. Check the tide before you fall in love with one, because the ocean does not care about your schedule.
Seal Beach
Seal Beach Dunes
Golden hour · Dunes · Wide open sky
Honey-gold dunes with coastal grasses that sway in every frame, and enough rolling terrain that kids stop performing and start running. You will find sand in your car for a month. Worth it.
Best for: a Picture Book where nobody stops running.
Maps →
Seal Beach
Seal Beach Pier
Wooden pier · Gentle surf · Small-town charm
One of the longest wooden piers in California, at the end of a Main Street that is happily stuck somewhere around 1965 and has no plans to leave. The sand runs wide and flat, the waves stay polite, and the whole town moves about half a beat slower than the rest of the coast.
Best for: a Picture Book that ends with ice cream on Main Street.
Maps →
Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach Pier
Classic California · Surf vibes · Golden hour
Classic California, full stop. Sun-warmed sand, the pier glowing as the sun drops, and surfers trading waves in the background who are absolutely going to end up in your family photos. Honestly, let them. It dates the picture in the best possible way, and in fifteen years that's the detail your kids point at.
Best for: a Picture Book with surfers photobombing the background.
Maps →
Newport Beach
Balboa Pier
Dogs: early and late only · Wooden pier · Golden hour
Wide flat sand, a wooden pier stretching out over the water, and grassy Peninsula Park right at the base of it for when the little ones have had enough of the sand. Uncomplicated and generous at golden hour, and the Fun Zone is a short walk up the boardwalk if you want two completely different looks out of one session.
Best for: a Side Quest that starts on the sand and ends at the Ferris wheel.
Maps →
Newport Beach
Little Corona del Mar
Low tide best · Tide pools · Arch Rock
A pocket cove at the end of Poppy Avenue with Arch Rock offshore. The tide pools are protected, absolutely teeming, and the most reliable way I know to make a seven year old forget a camera exists.
Best for: a Side Quest, everyone crouched over a tide pool.
Maps →
Newport Beach
Crystal Cove
$100 permit · Low tide best · Historic cottages
More visual variety in one stretch of coast than most locations manage in total. Wildflower bluffs, tidepools below, 1930s cottages, a clifftop path tying it together. Most planning of anywhere here, and always worth it.
Best for: an Origin Story that never leaves one parking lot.
Maps →
Laguna Beach
Crescent Bay Beach
$100 permit · Low tide best · Dogs: leashed, summer limits
A hidden cove on the north end of Laguna with dramatic rocks, tide pools, and a bluff-top overlook that takes in the whole crescent at once. At low tide the wet sand turns into a mirror and the sea lions haul out on the rock offshore. There are a lot of stairs going down, which means there are exactly as many stairs coming back up. Consider that your warm-up.
Best for: a Double Feature timed to the mirror.
Maps →Laguna Beach
Treasure Island Beach
$100 permit · Low tide best · Sea cave
Rocky coves, tide pools that are practically an aquarium, and an actual sea cave. This one rewards the adventurous. It takes more planning and real patience with the tide charts, but the frames you get here look like nowhere else on the Orange County coast.
Best for: a Side Quest for a family that likes a scramble.
Dana Point
Strands Beach
Mid to low tide best · Uncrowded · Coastal views
Strands has a slow, generous quality. Rolling waves, big coastal views, and enough room that you never end up dodging someone else's beach towel. The kind of beach where people relax without being told to, and that shows up in every single frame.
Best for: a Picture Book with nobody else in the shot.
Maps →Parks & Trails
Eucalyptus groves, rolling hills, oak canopies, golden afternoon light. Most of these let the dog come, which is usually the deciding vote anyway.
Brea
Carbon Canyon Regional Park
Dog friendly · Live oaks · Meadow
Live oaks, a rustic wooden fence, and a meadow borrowed from a fairytale. The northeast corner is where I take people when I want them to forget they're being photographed, which usually takes about eleven minutes.
Best for: a Picture Book in the good kind of nowhere.
Maps →
Yorba Linda
Redwood Grove Trail
Dog friendly · Local secret · Redwoods
A genuine redwood grove, in Yorba Linda, that most people living ten minutes away have never heard of. Cool, quiet, and completely out of place in the best way.
Best for: a Picture Book nobody else has in their album.
Maps →
Anaheim
Yorba Regional Park
Dog friendly · Fall color · Lake
Golden trees, a lake full of extremely confident ducks, and a wooden bridge that looks like it was built specifically to be photographed. Beautiful in every season, but late fall is the show. This park has my whole heart and I'm not being subtle about it.
Best for: a Picture Book when the park turns gold.
Maps →
Anaheim Hills
Weir Canyon
Wilderness · Amber light · Dirt trails
Real California wilderness hiding behind a very ordinary neighborhood. Winding dirt paths, enormous sky, and a warm amber cast over everything once the sun drops. Wear shoes you don't mind dusting off.
Best for: a Main Character with a whole canyon behind you.
Maps →
Anaheim
Oak Canyon Nature Center
Quiet trails · Tall oaks · Peaceful
Winding oak-lined trails where the city just quietly disappears. Deep pockets of shade and light coming through the canopy in a way that does half my job for me.
Best for: a Main Character, shade and quiet and nobody watching.
Maps →
Tustin
Citrus Ranch Park
Dog friendly · City views · Citrus groves
Hilltop grass, old citrus groves, and a gazebo looking out over the city. The light here is unusually generous, soft and warm with a clean backdrop in whatever direction you point. Wildly underrated and somehow never crowded, which I probably shouldn't be telling you.
Best for: a Picture Book with a gazebo nobody's fighting you for.
Maps →
Seal Beach
Gum Grove Park
Dog friendly · Hidden gem · Dappled light
A small forest sitting improbably close to the beach. Tall gum trees, dappled shade, and the sound of waves somewhere behind you that your brain cannot quite reconcile with the trees in front of you. Kids wander the paths, parents catch their breath, and the light filters through in that dreamy way I've never managed to describe properly.
Best for: a Picture Book in a forest that shouldn't be next to a beach.
Maps →The best spot is almost never the prettiest one. It's the one where everybody forgets I'm there.
Irvine
Jeffrey Open Space Trail
Dog friendly · High variety · Wildflowers
Fields, tree-lined trails, and seasonal wildflowers, with more visual variety packed into one walk than almost anywhere else local. If you want four completely different backdrops without anybody getting back in the car, this is the one.
Best for: an Origin Story, four backdrops in one walk.
Irvine
Quail Hill Park
Dog friendly · Grassy hills · Room to roam
Grassy hills and gentle trails, and one of those places where people forget they're being photographed about ten minutes in. Which is, reliably, when everything good starts happening.
Best for: a Double Feature that's really just a walk up a hill.
Maps →
Lake Forest
Serrano Creek Park
Dog friendly · Eucalyptus forest · Cinematic light
A genuinely impressive eucalyptus forest tucked into the middle of Lake Forest. The light filters down cool and green and layered, and it photographs like a set. Easy to wander into and weirdly hard to leave.
Best for: a Picture Book, maternity edition, in green light.
Maps →
Laguna Hills
Oso Parkside Path
Dog friendly · Always empty · Pastoral
Perpetually deserted and always beautiful. Filtered light along a grassy pasture, a rustic fence, and a quiet that makes it feel less like Orange County and more like somewhere you'd invent if you could.
Best for: a Picture Book for a small crew and a long quiet walk.
Maps →
Coto de Caza
Thomas F. Riley Wilderness
Ranch vibes · Golden light · Wide open
Sun-drenched oak groves and rolling hills with big golden ranch energy. Wide open enough that this is where I put the extended family, all sixteen of them, aunts and cousins included, and still have room left over.
Best for: a Picture Book with room for the whole extended crew.
Maps →Urban & Architecture
Clean lines, old stone, painted walls, real visual interest. For anyone whose idea of a good time does not involve a tide chart.
Newport Beach
Lido Marina Village
Dog friendly · Editorial · No sand
White-brick boutiques, flower walls, and wooden docks with electric boats drifting past. This one feels less like a photo shoot and more like a very stylish afternoon out. Texture and personality in every direction, with a bit of Newport polish on top.
Best for: a Main Character with an editorial streak.
Maps →
Newport Beach
Balboa Fun Zone
Dogs: early and late only · Ferris wheel · Boardwalk
Frozen bananas, an arcade that has not meaningfully changed since 1936, and a Ferris wheel that lights up right as the sky goes purple. The mural walls along the boardwalk make a great backdrop for a senior or a couple. Midday it's chaos, so go early or take the last hour of light.
Best for: a Side Quest that ends when the Ferris wheel lights up.
Maps →
San Juan Capistrano
Mission San Juan Capistrano
$100 permit · Dog friendly · Historic
Stone arches, lily ponds, and the ruins of the Great Stone Church. Grand and intimate at the same time, with an old-world warmth that pushes a portrait closer to art. The walls are two hundred years old and they photograph like they know it.
Best for: a Main Character where the walls are older than the state.
Maps →Still To Come
Six I haven't shot. Yet.
All twenty four above earned their spot through real sessions, which is why they get photos and these don't. These six are scouted on foot, mapped in my head, waiting on the right family to say yes. Book one and you get first dibs on a place I've never photographed.
Or somewhere that's yours.
Orange County is big and your family's story is entirely your own. If there's a place that already means something, a neighborhood you grew up in, a trail you hike every weekend, a coffee shop that's basically yours at this point, I'm always up for somewhere new. The best location is almost always the one that feels the most like you.
I also shoot family photo locations in Los Angeles, no travel fee. The full sortable directory version of this list lives here.
Sessions have started at
The backyard you're about to move out of
A donut shop on a Saturday morning
Grandma's kitchen table
The trail you hike every weekend
Your kid's favorite playground
The pier where you got engaged
A farmers market you never miss
Somewhere I've never been
Found one?
Tell me which stop caught your eye and roughly when you're thinking. I'll come back with the light, the tide, and what's open.
Tell Me About Your SpotDaniel Wesley
