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

Where do I even start? I asked friends for a recommendation for a local photographer that did weddings. I was given a dozen different ones that I went and researched on my own. My husband and I have played with photography in the past and were really picky on who we would choose for our big day. We were blown away by Manuel's website and work.
He responded quickly to my online inquiry and any and every random question I had.
Due to Covid, this was the only person besides our family and minister that would be at our wedding. He arrived at the location before we did, which I didn't expect, because I'm usually the first one everywhere. I met him and his lovely wife/assistant and was instantly at ease. I didn't even have to ask, they immediately starting documenting our big day. They gave direction when we asked, but it was like they weren't even there, yet they captured every single special moment, ones even I missed. Our family left talking about how nice and professional they were.
We received our pictures back FAST, and holy crap... I cried out of happiness as I looked through them. They were so good, I literally don't know how to pick which ones to print to put on the wall. Every time I look through them, I find even more that I love and appreciate.
If you are thinking of hiring Manuel, do it. My friends and family are obsessed with our pictures and I'm so grateful we chose him. I will stop strangers on the street and tell them about my amazing experience. I look forward to working with him in the future.

Working with Manuel and his wife Melissa was a great experience! I haven't had a photo shoot done since my senior pictures, which was about 8-9 years ago, and this was my fiance's first photo shoot, so we were definitely nervous and our anxiety was at an all time high! Manuel and Melissa definitely made us feel at ease with everything and just made our whole engagement session run smoothly. They have the best personality and a great sense of humor, which definitely helped our nervousness. We are SO IN LOVE with our photos!!!! If we didn't already have a wedding photographer booked, we definitely would have booked them for our wedding!! Thank you so much Manuel and Melissa!