A. O'Brien Photography

We hired A. O'Brien Photography for an engagement session. I absolutely LOVE all of the photos from that session. He was very patient and willing to work with our ideas, and also suggested other fun and creative options that we had not thought about that just turned out great. In addition to all of this, he had the (un-retouched) photos up on a website for us to review within only a few days so we could pick which ones we wanted to order or have retouched. Also, We weren't really familiar with the area so we had him select a location for us within set parameters. The location he chose was PERFECT! I have NO complaints, in fact, we have requested that we schedule another session before our wedding to get another location with a different look. I would absolutely recommend him!!!

A. O'brien photography was fantastic! He and his wife work as a team, with her doing a lot of the directing, where he focuses on the photo taking. THey are both very friendly and professional, and work very hard to give you exactly what you want. Our pictures turned out great! You can tell he took a lot of time editing and enhancing all of the photos, and gave us a wide selection of poses and styles to choose from.
I'm surprised to see that another reviewer thought he was inexperienced: our wedding was nearly a year ago and Austin was experienced and great with post-production. He gives you a wide selection of styles but doesn't boss you around or get in the way of the ceremony or reception like many photographers do.
I couldn't have been happier with his performance during the wedding and with the pictures we got!

I cannot say enough good things about Austin! He did both my engagement and wedding photos and I could not be happier. Austin was amazing to work with! He has always been very helpful and he is always full of new ideas and suggestions. He really loves what he does and it shows! Right now I am planning a trash the dress session with him and I cannot wait! I don't know who is more excited, me or him.

I would highly recommend Austin to anyone looking for a photographer for their wedding! In fact, I've already had a few people ask me for his information just from seeing my pictures. I couldn't have asked for any more and I can't wait to work with him again. I will be a customer for life!

I'm really surprised at the one and only 2-star review. However, since all the other reviews are 5 stars, I think the general consensus outweighs one less-than-happy client. Austin was the best thing that ever happened to my wedding! He made the whole experience even better, if that's possible. He worked his butt off at our wedding, following us from table to table and capturing little moments with each guest. Our pictures turned out beautifully, and working with him was an absolute joy. Do yourself a favor and at least contact him. He's worth every penny and then some.

My future son-in-law decided to hire A. O'Brien Photography to capture their engagement and celebration. I am thrilled with the quality of the pictures, the creativity of the photographer, and the story his pictures told of that evening. The photos will help us always remember this special event.

Austin is one amazing wedding photographer! Planning a wedding while being in grad school was so fun but at times extremely stress-provoking - working with Austin was definitely part of the fun! I was really, really nitpicky when it came down to finding someone to take my wedding photos. I searched for a long time and interviewed multiple photographers before finding and choosing Austin.

He was an absolute pleasure to work with from the start and I am definitely looking forward to using his services again for other photo projects. He is really great in making me feel like my wedding was just as important to him as it was to me and always goes the extra mile to provide that personal attention. For example, he not only helped me to research locations for my preceremony photos, but also took the time to travel and check out some spots with me. He even made the necessary phone calls to arrange for permits and such. Austin was always really patient with any questions and concerns I had. The day of the wedding, he was so great with me, my husband, and our wedding party. We had a complete blast doing our own photo shoot before the ceremony. He also worked really well with my videographer.

After the wedding, Austin kept constant contact with me to keep me posted on the progress of the photos in terms of the editing, online proofs, and delivery of my negatives. He gave us a "teaser" view of our photos on his blog as he was working on them and I was in literal tears when I finally saw how wonderful they were. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my photos!! I wanted a candid, photojournalistic feel to my pictures but also needed some more traditional shots with family and such. Austin was very cool with understanding and being accommodating to those needs. He has a super fun, engaging yet professional personality that makes you so excited about the whole process. It was so nice to get off the phone with him and always have a smile on my face knowing that I could trust such an important part of the biggest day of our lives in his capable hands. Thanks so much, Austin!

Austin is awesome to work with. He is so easy going and easy to talk to, it's all about you and what you want. He does great portraits but I love his photojournalistic sytle and candid shots. You don't even know he is there just snapping away great photos. I used him for my engagment session as well as on my wedding day. We had to reschedule multiple times due to weather our engagment session and he worked around our shedule great. I was very please with our photos...close to 1500 of them.

Austin is one amazing wedding photographer! Planning a wedding while being in grad school was so fun but at times extremely stress-provoking - working with Austin was definitely part of the fun! I was really, really nitpicky when it came down to finding someone to take my wedding photos. I searched for a long time and interviewed multiple photographers before finding and choosing Austin. He was an absolute pleasure to work with from the start and I am definitely looking forward to using his services again for other photo projects. He is really great in making me feel like my wedding was just as important to him as it was to me and always goes the extra mile to provide that personal attention. For example, he not only helped me to research locations for my preceremony photos, but also took the time to travel and check out some spots with me. He even made the necessary phone calls to arrange for permits and such. Austin was always really patient with any questions and concerns I had. The day of the wedding, he was so great with me, my husband, and our wedding party. We had a complete blast doing our own photo shoot before the ceremony. He also worked really well with my videographer. After the wedding, Austin kept constant contact with me to keep me posted on the progress of the photos in terms of the editing, online proofs, and delivery of my negatives. He gave us a "teaser" view of our photos on his blog as he was working on them and I was in literal tears when I finally saw how wonderful they were. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my photos!! I wanted a photojournalistic feel to my pictures, although I did need some more traditional shots with family and such. Austin was very cool with understanding and being accommodating to those needs. He has a super fun, engaging yet professional personality that makes you so excited about the whole process. It was so nice to get off the phone with him and always have a smile on my face knowing that I could trust such an important part of the biggest day of our lives in his capable hands. Thanks so much, Austin!

My husband and I were extremely impressed with Austin's professionalism and his artistic eye. Right from the first day we met, we knew we were working with someone who we could trust and that followed through to the day we received our prints. Having him around is like having another wedding coordinator by your side. We appreciated that while he was professional, he wasn't too stiff - in other words, he made us feel comfortable and he stayed flexible. The photos were beyond our expectations. His eye for composition and lighting is terrific. He is also a very talented photo editor, taking some of his originals to a whole other level.

Austin gave us the best wedding experience we could possibly imagine and more. You simply will not be disappointed choosing him! Austin is incredibly talented and has an amazing eye when it comes to getting the right shot. Without having ever been to our wedding venue, he seemed to instantly have found the most beautiful locations with the right light and background. I didn’t think we could get such great backdrops out of our venue, but he found them! We received glowing compliments from our guests about how professional he and his assistants were. His equipment is top-notch and his creativity and talent are beyond words. He captured such great emotions and personalities in our photos that I can re-live the whole night scrolling through our photos. When we first met Austin, we loved how genuinely nice and easy going he was. You could tell that he really loves his work and really cared about our entire wedding experience. He made everything so easy and stress free, and this is coming from a girl who stressed about every detail in our wedding! Really, being stress-free about a vendor is a priceless experience, but Austin gave us this fantastic experience at a competitive price! Photography rates can be a killer, but his rates compared to the great quality and experience you get is very hard to find.We first worked with Austin during our engagement photos. He was so accommodating and cool about going to 2 very different locations, and spent so much time with us to get photos that matched our personalities perfectly. My husband was so nervous, thinking it would be “awkward” pretending to kiss and pose, but it so wasn’t like that. We had a blast and it was a uniquely romantic experience. Austin even caught us stealing some extra kisses in there for some wonderfully spontaneous photos. My husband was shocked about how much fun he had, and it’s because Austin is so easy to get along with.We can’t thank Austin enough for everything and he’ll definitely be our go to photographer for any future family photos!

Austin is absolutely amazing in every way! We first had him do out engagement session, in which we were BLOWN away with his work! He took us to an incredible area in Laguna Beach with a variety of different settings, which made for awesome pictures. The feedback we received from our family and friends about how much they loved the photos was overwhelming. Not only does he do great work, he's extremely nice and so much fun to work with. His talent shines through his photos and we couldn't be happier with not only the work he did for our engagement photos, but the wedding as well. He was so organized and professional which really takes the pressure off the bride and groom. You can rest assured that he will take care of every detail. His team was also a pleasure to work with. We HIGHLY recommend Austin for any occasion and we can't wait to work with him again!

My fiance & I just had an engagement shoot with Austin. The pictures turned out perfectly! Austin was very friendly & made us feel comfortable posing. He also suggested all of the locations to take pictures since we went to Pasadena. He gave us pretty garden shots & more urban shots too. He was also very open to hearing any feedback or ideas we had & really wanted to give us pictures that we loved. I would highly recommend Austin for anyone looking for a photographer.

My pictures are above and beyond what I had imagined, I am so pleased! Austin knew how to listen and understand what I wanted and then he made sure I got what I wanted out of my pictures. He is wonderful and truly service oriented.

A. O'brien Photography was absolutely instrumental in the success of our wedding and we feel tremendously fortunate to have found them. Austin is kind, courteous, professional, hard working and accommodating almost beyond belief. From our first meeting with him to discuss our engagement session we knew we had found a great team player. We’ll be the first to admit that we were very demanding, and particular with what we were looking for as far as our engagement and wedding package and through all this, Austin was flexible, very positive, and worked with every idea we had. He was always early to our appointments, extremely professional yet personal, and made everyone at our event, including us, feel very comfortable and relaxed. Most importantly his work is incredible and we have recommended him to everyone we meet. It's extremely hard to find his level of hard work, professionalism and personality in one package these days. Thank you Austin!

A.O'brien Photography was delightful. Austin made us feel comfortable and relaxed. We have received so many compliments on both our engagement and wedding photos. Austin and his team delivered more than we could have imagined or expected.

Austin was more than we could have ever hoped for in a photographer for our wedding. He was incredibly professional and personal as well. From the first time we met with him, I could tell he really cared about us as a couple and was going to do whatever he could to help gives us the memories and look we wanted to remember our day. He was kind and made us feel really comfortable, letting us be ourselves as well as offering really fun and ideas. He has a real eye and gut sense of those moments that you will really want to remember and captured them so well :) I love looking at my wedding pictures, because they bring me back to the day and how I felt in those moments. I am actually even considering booking him for a "trash the dress" session because my husband enjoyed our original experience so much.

Austin was every bride's dream for a vendor. From the first time we met him where he made the effort to come visit us so that we could meet him and share our ideas for our wedding, to doing a walk-through of our venue to ensure he could prepare some great shots, to the wedding day where he was incredibly helpful and easy to work with. I'm a very picky person when it comes to photograhpy and getting the "perfect" shot and Austin was not hasty in taking so many pictures so that we could have many priceless shots to remember our day by. Of all my vendors, Autsin was the only where that left me with no doubts about how the outcome would turn out. I am throughly pleased with the quality of his service and his degree of professionalism and talent! So much so, that I have recommened him to be the photographer for my sister's wedding next year and plan on reffering him to my friends and family for all their special occassions. Thank you again Austin for being so wonderful to work with and helping make our wedding the dream that we can relive everytime we look at your pictures. You are brilliant!

My wife and I looked over several photographers- their websites, prices, rates - and we met with a few in person. Austin really stood out from the crowd from the very beginning- his website is well put together; his pricing is transparent (package prices are clearly outlined) and reasonable for the quality of his work. What really caught our attention was his eye for photography and images. Working with him was pure joy for the rest of our wedding planning - we met at a Pasadena Starbucks and were pleased by his easy-going manner. We asked him to take engagement pictures of us at our wedding venue (in Temecula, CA - a 2 hour drive one way, and he didn't ask for any additional gas money or anything!) and they turned out beautifully. We were especially pleased by how Austin carefully reviewed out wedding site for good picture settings with our suggestions, and then we went wild and hiked across the road to an orange grove and took pictures there. For the wedding, Austin gave us his own shot list, then asked us to modify it and when we sent back an almost entirely different list, he asked some more questions about the schedule for the day and then we were good to go. I noticed that Austin had the shot list in-hand on the wedding day, which impressed me a great deal since I spent some time writing that list. On the day of our wedding, Austin and his assistant, Mark, were completely professional. They arrived on time, and used just the perfect amount of being directive ("could you stand here, ok look this way, etc.") balanced with blending into the background. Aside from posed photos, we never really knew they were there unless we needed them. My wife was very comfortable having Austin and his assistant in the bridal cottage taking pictures. Every one of the 900 wedding photos were high quality and he really captured all the special moments in the way that only photography can. We are a couple featured on his website (at Ponte Family Estates Winery with the big doors behind us). We loved his work and wish him the best in his career. You will be happy working with Austin. We highly recommend him to all future brides. He is based out of Pasadena but he is very flexible and told us that he has traveled as far as Las Vegas for weddings.

From the time I first met Austin, I loved the way he was so easy to talk to and down to earth. I had met with a few other photographers and they rubbed me the wrong way for reasons of being late to being overly confident and other reasons. Austin is so down to earth and truly passionate about what he does.I had done research and wanted to tweak my options for photography and Austin worked with me and let me know that he would do whatever it took to get me exactly what I wanted.He took my engagement photos and that was the first time working with him. I knew then that my wedding pictures were going to be amazing. He went the extra mile to make sure our photos were amazing and always allowed me to contact him whenever possible via email and phone.I feel so honored to have been able to work with Austin and you really cannot go wrong with him! He is incredible!! :)

Austin O' Brien photography was a dream come true. Austin is everything you hope for in a photographer. Austin is 1) Professional 2) mastered and skilled in his work 3) Avant-Garde and knows how to capture those 'Kodak moments'. 4)Punctual 5) Easy to communicate with 6)Presentable & Poised 7)Most of all, this one is for the ladies: HE'S VERY COMFORTABLE TO BE AROUND. He has a very calming way about him and the last thing you want on your wedding day is a frantic, pushy and curt photographer. Austin was one of the few people I spent quiet time with (he was the only one allowed in my room when I was getting ready--I refused to have my nervous mom, talkative bridesmaids and random people in & out of my room. He was very respectful and took such high-quality photos. He sure has an eye for detail. He took photos of things and arranged them in ways that I would have never thought of! He is truly an artist. I can assure you, he is the best photographer out there. He is afforable too! My goodness; all I know is that Austin is going to be in our lives for a long, long time. I will happily work with him again for personal portraits, baby pictures, family photos, and so much more! I can't wait. He's the best out there! Cheers to Austin!

I don't just hand out perfect scores, I have to really mean it. Austin is such an amazing photographer, I can do nothing but highly recommend him. He responds to emails and phone calls practically immediately, no matter how often you're doing it. His turn-around time with the photos is super fast, plus he puts up a preview on his blog before they're all finished so you can get a taste of what's in store. He shot our engagement session and our wedding and I almost wish I was doing it again just so I could work with him some more. Any photography I need in the future, I know he'll be my first choice.

Austin is amazing, but not only did we feel that way but so did all of our guests. One of the things we heard from everyone was how great our photographer was and how he was everywhere. We highly recommend him!

What can I say about Austin? He was the best plain & simple. He was amazing, we were very lucky to find him after searching and searching for the right photographer. Many photographers don't give you a lot for your buck, but Austin over exceeds. Very pleasant, accommodating and hard working. From the moment he arrived on location he started snapping shots non stop. Everyone who has seen our pix loves them as do we. Can not recommend any one better than Austin. He is our family photographer who we have on speed dial now.lol Monica & Bengi 11/27/2010

We feel very lucky to have found Austin and to have hired him to photograph our wedding. We live in northern ca but were planning our wedding in orange county, so we had our work cut out for us. Austin made it very easy and he was quick to respond to all e-mails and phone calls. He answered all question honestly and sincerely, which calmed our nerves. Austin's greatest quality is his eye for detail. We walked the grounds of our wedding/reception venue with him a week before the big day and he shared with us some great ideas that we would have never thought of on our own. Lastly, Austin's final touches and photo editing make the finished products unbelievable. My suggestion to any bride would be to have a clear outline of the pictures/portraits you want done, and make sure all people (family) you need in the photos are present at that time and Austin is aware of which photos you will be shooting next.

Austin and his wife are extremely kind, funny and great to be around. However, we used Austin for two engagement sessions and we were a little underwhelmed. He did take a lot of photos during both sessions, but quantity doesn't always equal quality. We did get a few photos out of the sessions, but we could tell that there were some lack of editing and post-production skills when we received our final product.

I don't want to discourage people from using his services, because for the price, it's wonderful for any bride on a strict budget. The review below for manologirl sounds true to the Austin we worked with, however, I did help her with editing her final photos, as they were extremely overexposed and required further enhancement.

Austin is extremely professional and courteous and I think he's a pleasure to work with. I hope that his skills will improve over time. :)

Excellent, excellent, excellent. Austin recently shot my engagement photos and let me tell you, he's awesome. He made my fiance and I feel very comfortable despite the fact that he was following us around like a paparazzo. He's super easy going and fun to be around, which is important when you are spending hours with someone who you are entrusting your memories to. We shot them at the San Juan Capistrano Mission and even with all the beautiful spots already available, Austin made use of things we never would have thought to photograph. He has a great eye for colors and interesting shots.

In summation, here are the best things about this guy:
1. He shoots all his jobs personally. You get the name you are paying for. Unlike some big-name photography places where you pay the big bucks for some intern or newbie to show up.
2. He spends the time it takes making you feel comfortable and getting shots he really loves.
3. He follows up on everything. We had our engagement shots back in less than a week. No waiting around, hoping your photographer will get back to you. He's wonderful about answering questions, too.

“I was in awe of the beautiful work that you did. I really got lucky when I got you! The lighting, the composition of each shot…were all so beautiful.”

“EVERYTHING looks fantastic….you have managed to really “get” the emotion of the day!”

I had the pleasure of working with Austin at A. O’Brien Photography for the first time last fall. The first time I met Austin I liked him! Austin was friendly, personable, and very professional. The wedding images Austin and his team captured on our client’s wedding day were amazing. Austin is a true talent behind the camera! Hire A. O’Brien Photography and you will have a great experience and amazing images to show for it!

A. O'Brien Photography is a wonderful addition to any wedding or celebration. Austin is a master at catching every moment perfectly. He is very talented and perfection shows in every photograph. You will definitely be pleased with his work. Jay at www.thedjayCompany.com

Simply awesome! A picture is worth a thousand words isn't it?

Austin is an excellent photographer with an eye for detail. I can go on and on about his technical and creative skills but one very important thing I would like to note is his professionalism. I knew within one minute of talking to him the first time we met that he was a genuine, easy going and kind hearted guy. This, in my opinion is an absolute must for any wedding professional. Weddings can be stressful for brides, grooms and their family and friends and the last thing one needs is added stress from their vendors.You can rest assure that you are in good hands with Austin and I am happy to endorse him as a photographer and as a great guy.Sincerely,JoeToday's The Daywedding videography and 8mm film