Manuel Ortega Photography

Dec 2022

My husband and I had Manuel and Melissa take our engagement and wedding photos in June and September of 2022. They are an exceptional team who are professional, passionate, and make the experience feel fun and relaxed.They made us laugh, feel comfortable, and most importantly, they took great photos!Melissa had an eye for making sure that we looked our best and Manuel had the eye for the scenery and natural beauty nearby! Together, they were able to capture breathtaking photographs. Our photos looked so natural and the background scenery was amazing!Also, I greatly appreciated that they listened to what mattered most to us and they delivered! So many great memories were caught on camera of our guests on our wedding day. So many special moments that my husband and I didn’t get to see but were able to enjoy in their photography.I highly recommend this power duo! I promise you, you will not be disappointed!

Nov 2022

We had such a great experience doing multiple photo sessions with Manny and Melissa. They are highly experienced, professional, punctual, and passionate about their work. They helped me relax in front of the camera too. I was at ease during our wedding knowing that they were our photographers and the photos came out beautifully.

Nov 2022

Simply put, Manuel Ortega is a superb, talented, artistic, and professional caliber wedding photographer who fulfilled all our expectations and more. Beyond his exceptional photography skills, Manuel is warm, friendly, and easy to work with, honest, reliable, a good listener, and attentive to you needs/preferences. He loves his craft, which shows in the quality of his photos and the joy with which he approaches his work and conducts himself. Manuel’s wife Melissa is a talented photographer in her own right and together they work efficiently and effectively as a team on all their shoots. They were both an absolute pleasure to work with from start to finish. We also enjoyed meeting their adorable son who came along with them to our engagement photo session!We spent days searching for our ideal wedding photographer. It was important to us to work with a person of color, and we are so grateful that we found Manuel, a fantastic photographer who is also Latino. We could not have chosen better. Unlike many other high quality, professional wedding photographers we researched whose prices are astronomical, Manuel’s pricing is reasonable, affordable, flexible, and it allowed us to stay within our budget, which we greatly appreciated.For our engagement photo session, we met Manuel at a beautiful beach in the Carmel area just before sunset. It turned out to be an ideal spot for our engagement photo shoot and we were very happy with how the photos turned out. The setting was gorgeous, lighting ideal, and there was hardly anybody else there. Manuel helped put us at ease immediately with his relaxed manner and professionalism, which made it easy for us to follow his instructions and get some great candid and posed shots. Manuel’s top-of-the-line camera equipment takes amazing photos with him at the helm. Melissa helped out with the backlighting and instructing us on ideal hand and body positions for the shots. We highly recommend doing the engagement photo session. It gave us a chance to get to know Manuel & Melissa and to develop rapport and an easy working relationship with them prior to the wedding. So, on our wedding day, we knew what to expect and already felt at ease working together.Prior to the wedding, Manuel promptly answered all our questions and we also had a great final conversation with him about our specific photography wishes/preferences for our wedding day. Manuel & Melissa delivered in every way. On our wedding day, they showed up early to familiarize themselves with the venue since they hadn’t been there before. As a team, they captured all the most important moments of our day, as well as the memorable details. They also did a great job capturing the setting, including the food, the dinner reception set up, the flowers, and beautiful aspects of the venue. Notably, despite the fact that our wedding got off schedule because our ceremony ran longer than we had anticipated, Manuel & Melissa adapted to the situation admirably and went with the flow, doing their best to capture family photos after the ceremony, even though we essentially ran out of time for them! They improvised beautifully under the circumstances.When we received our 1000+ wedding photos from Manuel a few weeks after the wedding, we were blown away. We love the wedding photos Manuel & Melissa captured and are so glad we hired them to be our wedding photography team! We highly recommend them!Rob & Soreliz