Two Rings Bind Them: Andrea and Trey at Hotel Derek in Houston!

Down in Houston everything is bigger. Weddings seem to be no exception. The wedding took place at the Hotel Derek and was a fun filled wedding with a lot of surprises for the guests. Their ceremony was very theatrical and Andrea entered like a super model striding in to a roaring fanfare of music and guests applause and cheers. The reception was nightclub themed with moody lighting, blacklights and a bigger than life DJ/lighting effects dude who made it all seem like a rave out of the Matrix. The party ended at 2 a.m. and as we went up the elevator we saw a few guests who asked us if we were going to the after party. I had slept about two hours the night before so we declined and passed out.








Trey was good friends with a professional breakdancing crew based in Houston called the Urge Works who did two performances during the wedding to stir up the crowd and bring them out to dance. I doubt that I will have the chance to shoot pictures of people like this at any other wedding.

STUDIO 2.0: 30 days of HELL!

I'd pretty much given up on finding a studio in Austin and had resigned myself to a 120 square foot office space where I did all of my post production there. It was a nice tiny little space, but it was a little frustrating because I still had to meet people in coffee shops which was really weird for me because I had a really great studio on the West Coast before we moved.

I decided to start small in Austin rather than going in on a studio that was meant for a more established business. And I did that and stopped looking around for a studio space.

Then out of the blue, something just dropped into my lap and I couldn't say no. 2007 Kramer Ln, Suite 104, Austin, TX 78758

It was perfect in more ways than something can be perfect. It was actually too big and gave me a little more room to design something really cool, somewhat like my last studio but bigger, better and cooler.

I try not to emphasize this to most of my clients, but I can do just about anything. In my past I've learned a little of everything and done a little of everything especially in the construction world. The following pictures showcase some of that everything that I have done in the past and apparently still have the skills for today. If you're one of those people who doesn't read the blog and just looks at the pictures it just looks like someone came in and did it all for, but I did everything single thing in the remodel from the framing to the electrical. I just do photography because I love it and I am better at shooting a wedding than anything else I have done.

There are a few people must thank for helping me out of the kindness of their hearts because I am too cheap to hire people and refuse to hire illegal aliens to do the grunt work.

First off is: Nate Mayfield who is a world class trumpet player here in Austin, studied at Juliard and was reduced to laying floor with me for a couple of days.

Second is: My bother Adam who was all too excited about finding me in his driveway to unexpectedly pick him up before some awful part of the remodel. Cheerfully he would lend his assistance.

Lastly is: Victor. Drywall hanging crazy man.





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This is what it looked like after we began laying out the walls. The space was used as storage for the guys behind my space since the last tenant left early in 2007. One of the tenants behind me owns a company called Digital Vehicles, Inc, a company that makes realistic formula one racing simulators that tour with the races. That explains why there was a race car in the space when we began and for almost the whole remodel.


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I framed these walls all by myself today because everyone else was busy. I think it took about 5 hours.




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Victor came over and we whipped out all of this drywall in about 6 hours.



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Christina helped me to do the plate on the curved wall. There are no picture from this part of the operation because I was holding the plate in one hand, had a drill in the other and had an extension cord strung over a roof truss hitch to the middle of the plate so we could get it up there. You had to be there to see it and if you had been there you could have taken the picture.



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My brother Adam came over this happy day to finish framing out the curved wall and hang the drywall on it. To make drywall bend you have to soak it with water and then yell at it the whole time you're putting it up while water runs down your arms off of it. Looks so easy when it's all done like it is in he picture.




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Everyone abandoned me for the tape, mud and sanding part of the project. I suppose they had good reason because I came home for a couple of days looking like I snorted a 5-gallon bucket of cocaine. I think the is probably the most annoying thing I have ever had to do. I hate sanding drywall mud. Next time I'll just get hire someone to do it for me. Ya right.



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Primer. Yeah, you missed the texture and one coat of primer, but it all looks the same after a while.



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Paint. Do you like my colors? I don't really care. I like them.



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We began the floor and got a little more than a third of it done. This is where Nate showed how fast he could move.



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Cutting around this curved wall took a lot more time than I thought it would. I think I spent 4 hours just cutting around the wall. Aren't my kids cute?


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This is the office where all of my computers live now.


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This is the office where all of my computers live now with a brand spanking new floor in it.


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Nate Mayfield and his infamous Baroque Trumpet Drill.

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Wiring the track lighting and finalizing how the switches were going to work. This is what I consider to be the end of the construction phase of the studio. Was it fun to look through? Did everyone learn something? I sure did. Hire subs and don't try and cram it all into a month.

ENGAGE! Megan and Josh!

Megan had obviously done some sort of theatrical training. As I do with all of my shoots, I suggest what I would consider to be impossibly bizarre expressions for my subject to try out and then observe where they go with it. Megan nailed quite a few of them dead-on what to my expectations which doesn't usually happen. We shot around downtown and ended our shoot at the Hey Cupcake trailer on SoCo. Megan and Josh enjoyed a cupcake and I tried a bite. I enjoyed it, but was it worth the wait in the line for 10 minutes? Wow.

ENGAGE! Laura and Justin!

We'd been rained out for Laura and Justin's engagement session on our first try but I think it ended up working out well because the day we shot was quite possibly the most beautiful day of the year! We began at 10 a.m. They had had a little catastrophe earlier in the morning when Justin broke the coffee maker though I never heard whether they had gotten coffee out of it first. I don't drink coffee, but I've been a first hand witness to people who have missed their coffee and it isn't a pretty site. These two seemed fine though they kept making funny remarks about the loss of the coffee maker.

Justin had very sensitive eyes so the morning light was killing him, so we did a good deal of work around to try and make it easier on his eyes. I spent eight years living in the desert and understand the eyes desire to squint when it is bright very well. Despite the coffee maker incident, the images turned out fabulously!