Nicole Nelson Photography

This review is long overdue — our wedding was in September, 2014. But I would be remiss if I didn’t share how fabulous she is!
Nicole is an exceptional photographer, which anyone can see from her portfolio. What you can’t see on the portfolio is how gracious, kind, and just generally wonderful she is. Both my husband and I are camera-​shy, and she made us feel so relaxed and more like ourselves during our engagement and wedding shoots. The astonishing result: pictures that actually look like us, and capture our personalities! We love to take out our wedding album to share with guests, and everyone that attended the wedding comments on how well the photos capture the spirit of our celebration.
I hope I get to work with her again in the future, maybe for an anniversary shoot or family portrait.
In sum: she’s the best!

Nicole is an amazing artist and absolutely wonderful to work with. We’ve hired her twice now and couldn’t be happier with the photos she’s produced. She just completed our wedding photos and I literally can’t decide between 800 photos to put in our photo book. THEY ARE ALL AMAZING. She is very communicative, prompt, kind, and genuine… among many other wonderful attributes. Her work exudes her excellence. Thank you for the memories that will last a lifetime and more!

Nicole is not only incredibly gifted in her vision and eye for capturing grace, playfulness, and beauty… she is also a pleasure to work with! It was so easy to co-​create with her as she has an air of ease and joy as she guides you through your photo session. The photos came out exactly as I requested, she was punctual, professional, and personable. I can not recommend her enough!

Nicole took our maternity photos and they turned out better than we ever could have imagined, they are absolutely amazing!!! We feel so lucky to have heard about her and have her capture a very special moment in time for our family. These are pictures we will be proud to show to generations of family. We highly recommend her to anyone that is looking for professional portraits. She is incredibly professional and will make you feel like she’s known you for years. Time and Money very well spent. We can’t wait for more family sessions with her!

Wow! What a phenomenal photographer (and all around great person) to work with.
Nicole takes beautiful photographs. I have had the fortune of working with her several times in different situations — some live event photography, some portraiture, and other artistic projects including a poetry book that is now in the permanent collection of the UCSB Arts Library.
Each time I have been so happy with the result of the shoot. Nicole is extremely accommodating, a great listener, open to trying out new ideas and always ready with lots of ideas of her own.
Sometimes it’s hard to keep a straight face while getting photographed because Nicole puts you at ease so quickly and is so personable. She has a great sense of humor; I am very thankful I have gotten to work with someone like this.

My wife and I did a set of baby bump photos with Nicole that turned out amazingly well. She was on time, a joy to work with and delivered wonderful photos. She had great suggestions about time of day and lighting to get the best results. She really listened to what we were trying to do and understood our vision of the photo shoot as well as building off our vision. She’s super nice and passionate about what she does and we highly recommend her!

Nicole did a photo shoot of our Grandkids last summer. The shots she took were incredible, but on top of that, she was able to captivate the attention of our Grandkids and inspire them to become even more photogenic than they naturally are (yes, I’m the proud GrandPa:) If you’ve ever tried to get pictures of a 3 & 7 year old, who have some sibling issues going on, you’ll know what I’m talking about. They had a great time on our «adventure» and we got some great photos to prove it. Nicole’s a very engaging photographer with an amazing eye. You will love the results!
j van Breen

After browsing through many many photographers’ websites, I chose to work with Nicole mainly because I loved her photos – they show an incredible eye and I felt made each shot about a story told, a context of person within their environment rather than just being competent headshots. But also because I just got a good feeling about her, which was confirmed every step of the way. She made the process very easy – making the appointment, telling me exactly how much it would cost, telling me how to prepare for it, and getting the photos to me in a personal gallery afterward.
The photo shoot itself we did taking a walk out in a park, and although I am very nervous in front of a camera Nicole is warm, funny, and non-​judgmental, and made me about as relaxed as I’ll ever get taking pictures. She told me that if a person doesn’t look good in photos, that’s the fault of the photographer, which is such a nice attitude especially when I think about photographers I’ve met in the past who actually got irked with me for being stiff in front of the camera.
Nicole took her time and many shots and did a beautiful job. Great retouching work, too – I think these are the only photos I have where I don’t have these two wrinkles showing on my neck!
Overall, I highly recommend Nicole. She is professional, talented, and down-​to-​earth – a pleasure to work with in all ways.