Monica Bannan

Monica Bannan

San Francisco, CA

“What I really admire about Joshua is his philanthropic arm, and it's because of that philanthropic arm that I was exposed to his photography. He donates photography packages to nonprofits and schools. I'm the president of the board of directors for Dress for Success San Francisco, he donated to our holiday event, and I bought the package.”

Capturing natural moments and expression, especially in kids, is difficult and Joshua is able to so.

He also prints in black and white which is amazing. Not a lot of people do that… at the time he might have even been shooting film. He has a dark room and does the printing himself. Because both of us have developed prints ourselves we understand the labor of love involved.

“Joshua called us in to go through the proofs to ultimately decide which ones we want. My husband was a little skeptical, but then we sat down and ran through through the proofs. They were beautiful, stunning pictures. We liked so many of them!”

“They were really precious pictures, what he was able to draw out of our children are expressions that we see in our everyday life but are rarely captured in photos. It is truly freezing moments in time. They hang along our staircase and every day I walk by them and think, oh, they're so beautiful.”

“I feel like Joshua captures the whimsy and the closeness of our family and Joshua was able to capture the boys individual character, there's a twinkle in a mysteriousness in the older one's eyes and you can see my youngest is silly and outspoken.

He also captured this energy that you feel between the brothers. There's a seriousness and a bond between them that comes out through the pictures, which I love.”

“My parents went to the photo studios like JCPenney or Sears and my childhood photos are a bit more formal and posed. I wish that I had more photo journalistic pictures of my childhood.”

“I feel like I'm doing something to create legacy for the family that's beautiful.”

“I would recommend him because they're not just family photographs— they’re art— they're heirloom quality you could pass them down.”