Le Petit Monde Ursula Bensimon Photography, La Jolla

Ursula Bensimon has viewed the world through a camera lens since her seventh birthday, when her father gave her her first Polaroid camera. Now at the helm of her own studio, Ursula Bensimon Photography, she captures the same carefree glee in the faces of youngsters during innovative sessions that often result in magazine-quality photos with a high-fashion sensibility. Rather than relying on rehearsed poses, she lets the tots interact with live donkeys or bury themselves to the waist in sand during surreal shoots that draw out real emotions, such as elation, wonder, or the excited glimmer in the eye of a future donkey trader. Bensimon also shoots teens and adults in the same laissez faire fashion, letting her subjects’ personalities shine.