Dorothy Hatchel Photography

We couldn’t ask for more! Dorothy is awesome and a very talented photographer! We were so excited to have her shoot our engagement picture and despite the weather, the pictures turned out beautiful! She has a very good eye in spotting just the right shots. She has such a very warm personality and we felt really comfortable during the photo shoots (to the point we actually forgot that she was there!). The pictures turned out so natural and candid, not forced and cliché.
We were even more elated to find out that she was willing to drive all the way to Sacramento to take our wedding pictures! We couldn’t have picked a better photographer to do our wedding pictures (we only trust her)! With her husband, Jeff, they were very professional and did a phenomenal job! The wedding pictures were more than worth it. We love how she gave us two digital copies of our pictures: a print version and a web version. The web version comes in so handy and made it easy when we uploaded our pictures to Facebook and digital frames.
Thanks Dorothy and Jeff!
A definite 5 star!

I received a letter from Dorothy, hand-​addressed, with a great photo and a congrats on my engagement. Although our wedding is out of state and we had no intention of having engagement photos taken, I pulled up her website and was instantly impressed. After seeing Dorothy’s work and then learning of how affordable her prices were, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have her shoot a session for us.
Dorothy was very responsive, sweet as can be, and easy to work with. We chose to have our photos taken over at Fort Baker/​Cavallo Point and while she knew the best places to capture the moment and the environment, she also was completely open to our suggestions.
I am thrilled with the way the photos turned out. We were provided a disk of the best photos to print as needed. Both my fiancée and I are camera shy and not typically comfortable in front of the camera, although you’d never know based on how at ease we look in the photos– they are completely natural. I couldn’t be happier!

Dorothy is not only a great photographer, she’s a super nice person. flexible, easy going, creative, and a really great vendor to work with. I came across her photos from another bride and when we met, I just knew she was someone I would love to work with and so when it came time to get a photographer for my grandfathers 80^th birthday, it had to be her! The process was really easy, she’s really affordable and worth waaaay more than she charges, I promise. :)
The pictures are amazing and everyone loves them! I was excited to receive them really fast (within the week) and have been in awe since. She captured the party perfectly and I have already recommended her to my friends and family. You can see her work at
from this party. BOOK HER!

She is just wonderful! She took our family photos this year — and with our fussy 3-​yr old, I was certain she didn’t get any good shots. I was VERY wrong — there were so many wonderful pictures. And Dorothy is very affordable — definitely an added plus. I would highly recommend her.

Dorothy Hatchel is an AMAZING photographer. If your planning an event or getting married in the Bay Area she should be your first phone call. We hired her to photograph our wedding in Napa and she was spectacular. ALL of the photos were beautiful and she blended in very well with the crowd. Trust me, she is the best in the bay area.
Cheers!

Dorothy came to our home to take some engagement type photos of my then-​fiancé and I. We had never met before and it was instantly easy to work with her. She had some creative ideas with the setting and props at hand. She made the experience fun, relaxed and enjoyable and the photos turned out great! We sent a photo with each of our wedding announcements when we eloped and have gotten many comments on them. Her prices were completely reasonable for the 3 hours work she did for us plus sending us a CD and posting photos on her website. I would definitely recommend her to anyone.

I have begun a tradition with my son, Diego, of having a photo shoot together and printing a coffee book with the pictures.
Dorothy is AMAZING! She is a great communicator and has a talent for making one comfortable. She has great suggestions and an eye for capturing those special moments. The photos speak for themselves. I AM EXTREMELY SATISFIED with Dorothy’s work.
If you want a great photographer, who will go above & beyond to cater to your expectations in a kind, pleasant manner and will leave you with photographic treasures that you will LOVE then you should give Dorothy a call.
Yes, now… call her!

Dorothy shot our March 2009 wedding and did a fabulous job. I enthusiastically recommend her to other couples. From our first interactions with her, to the prep for the wedding and engagement photos, to the wedding day and the photos from the day, Dorothy was a consummate professional and lovely to work with. She is friendly and genuinely interested in getting to know us as a couple. I think this really helped her capture our personalities in the photos.
When we first contacted her, she was extremely prompt in all our communications (within 48 hours) and was flexible in meeting with us. She was also flexible in helping us to craft a package that fit our budget and requirements. We booked her about 6 months prior to our wedding and throughout that time, Dorothy would check in every now and then just to say hi. I really appreciated this and it definitely alleviated my stress level knowing that she hadn’t forgotten us.
One of the things that has really impressed me about Dorothy is her professionalism. For example, we had a engagement shot with Dorothy and while I thought most of the photos were great, there were a few that I wasn’t so fond of. I gave that feedback to Dorothy and she listened to the feedback and took it to heart to make sure that I was 100% happy with the wedding photos (which I was!). She was prepared for each of our meetings and did her homework — even going out to the wedding site without us to scope out the times with the best light.
On our wedding day, Dorothy and her second shooter were on time and worked tirelessly throughout the day (more than 10 hours). She did a great job blending into the crowd — I never even noticed her and have no idea how she managed to catch more than 700 beautiful photos. She has a wonderful eye and the moments she captured were the small moments that make you look back and really remember the joy of the day. She got all the shots that we requested and did a wonderful job corralling our guests (we had almost 200 guests). The photos feel very natural and organic as opposed to being very heavily photoshopped or posed. Dorothy also has experience in fashion photography as well and this really helped her capture me at all my most flattering angles.
Finally, Dorothy has a wide range of packages and I believe she is a great value for couples on any budget.

I have been in the process of reinventing myself for about the last 6 months. Part of that process was having some nice photos taken to mark where I am in the process. Dorothy responded to my ad for a photographer on Craigs List and from the very first contact, I knew she would be great. I was not disappointed.
Dorothy had great ideas for locations and even at the shoot itself, her ideas, poses and angles really helped capture me as I am which was exactly what I wanted. To top it all off, I got to see the pictures within 48 hours and had a CD of them in less than a week. It was a wonderful, highly professional experience.
If I’m lucky enough to get married again, I’ll definitely be calling her for my wedding as well as capturing other special moments in my life!

I just booked Dorothy for my June 2009 wedding. I am thrilled! She has been top notch so far and very helpful in our meeting and through email. She is always responsive. She is all about the client and really listens to your hopes for how you want your day documented. I can’t wait to add more after the wedding!
***Update*** We LOVE Dorothy and Jeff!
Dorothy is beyond fantastic and a wonderful photographer! We hired Dorothy for our wedding and engagement photos about a year before our wedding date. We had met with 4 – 5 other photographers prior to our first meeting with Dorothy and loved her instantly and hired her on the spot! We felt like she was very reasonably priced and loved her work. Our package included an engagement shoot, and Dorothy went above and beyond to help us get the pictures we wanted – even meeting with us on separate days so we could include our favorite spots around San Francisco. She was very fun and easy to work with. She scoped out our locations ahead of time to become familiar with the area and the light. She also drove more than 2 hours to our wedding venue ahead of time to preview the setting before our big day!
On the day of the wedding, Dorothy and her husband Jeff, were wonderful! Having worked with Dorothy before at the engagement shoot, and spoken with her on the phone and by email countless times before, I felt like she was an old friend on the day of the wedding! My husband and I were both totally at ease with her and commented after that we couldn’t have imagined working with anyone else, because they might not have delivered the same friendly experience. The day of our wedding was incredibly hot (with temperatures over 100 degrees!!) and Dorothy and Jeff were working tirelessly to ensure we recieved all the photos we could have hoped for. Many of our guests commented that she and Jeff were «everywhere» and didn’t seem to miss a single moment! We even received our full set of photos already edited less than 2 weeks later on our honeymoon! I was thrilled with how they turned out and have a hard time picking favorites because there are so many to choose from! She captured our wedding beautifully!
I think hiring Dorothy was one of the best decisions we made for our wedding! She was always responsive and helpful and above all else extrememly professional. I loved working with many of our vendors, but Dorothy was by far our favorite!

Dorothy was the photographer for our small wedding in Marin County (about 15 people) and I would highly recommend her.
* Dorothy came on time (or even slightly early) to our home and started taking photos of me getting my make-​up done. The make-​up artist, Dorothy and I were having a wonderful «girly» time. Dorothy was extremely friendly, very easy to get along with, very considering and polite. She was also never «in your face» and was asking me questions about my fiancé, my engagement ring, how we met etc… I later discovered the pictures she took while I was telling her stories and am so glad she did that, I really love them, they are very natural and I look so happy!
* Later, my fiancé, Dorothy and I went to Stinson Beach and I just LOVE the shots she took there. There are so many shots that I would like to frame for our home. Some were candid shots, some were a bit more posed but they are all fantastic!
* After that we went back to our home, for the actual ceremony, which was a simple affair but she got great moments of it. She also captured our friends and family.
If I had to be brief, I’d have to say that Dorothy is starting out but is doing a wonderful job, actually a lot better than what I’ve seen some very experienced people do. She has a great sense of composition, a natural style and is reasonable.
A very good friend of mine, who was not at the wedding, saw the pictures on-​line and wrote back to me:
«Oh my God these photos are extraordinary! You look like an ad campaign for something lovely — like fine wine or diamond rings. Who was the photographer?»
To finish, my fiancé is also a photographer (not for weddings though) so his positive judgment also has a lot of weight and he loves the shots as well. What we cannot tell you about Dorothy is how she does with lighting since our wedding was shot outside.

Dorothy Hatchel took pictures at my June 2008 wedding in Sausalito, CA. I was SO impressed and I cannot recommend her enough:
— The pictures Dorothy took were AMAZING — not only did she get those important posed/​portraits as well as the photojournalistic style, our pictures were original and fresh! Dorothy has a great creative eye! When I saw my final pictures, I wanted to cry — they caught such intimate, no-​emotions-​held-​back moments, and not just of me & my groom, but my relatives and friends.
— Dorothy is PROFESSIONAL — she was ON TIME to our day and her email correspondence was timely and organized. I saw her ALL the time at my wedding day, but she was never obstrusive or in the way while taking pictures, which was especially hard because our venue was definitely «cosy»!
— Dorothy is one of the NICEST people I have ever met. At our first meeting, she seemed soft-​spoken, but don’t let that fool you. There’s a BANG behind that smile that will come across in your pictures! When she did want people in a more posed position, she asked in a kind, gentle, friendly manner. My friends and family LOVED LOVED LOVED her. I went to a wedding once where the photographer was YELLING at people to get in a certain position. You won’t get that from Dorothy.
— I really felt that Dorothy LISTENED to me. I mean, of course she took initiative where appropriate, but *listening* was so important to me because I felt some of the other photographers I had interviewed were kind of off and running on poses and ideas. If I had said, I want a picture of me jumping over the Golden Gate Bridge, Dorothy would have said «That’s too dangerous, I don’t want you to get hurt, but we can come up with a way that makes it looks like you are actually doing it.» :) Haha, you know what I mean — any specific shots I want, she’ll get!
— Dorothy’s prices are SO REASONABLE! As of June 2008, her packages start at $ 2,000; all the other photographers started at price points of $ 5,000−6,000! She’s fairly new to the wedding scene, which is why her prices are lower for now, but Dorothy has been studying under photographers who charge like $ 10,000 for a wedding. OMG, I feel so lucky to get her now, ’cause a few years from now, I know she’s gonna be WAY out of what my budget was.
In working with Dorothy, I really felt like our collaboration was a partnership and not just a bride-​vendor situation. I feel so lucky to have found her!