Studio Opening Party

WOOHOO!

I did it again. By the grace of God I once again have a studio to meet people in and shoot if the weather is inclimate or if I just feel like exploring light! It was a long arduous journey through a lot of pain and suffering and yelling and throwing things and bending drywall and sanding and everything but in the end it was worth it! I had a party and invited everyone I know including clients, and photographers. Below are some of the guest pictures that I shot.


Ben and Sara

Andy Peterson

Mark and Emily

Farah and Spence

Nichelle and Darren

David Hill

Matt and Rhonda

Jeff and Alissa Marrow

Ulrike

Brittnee

Janna and Ryan

Sierra and Sandra

Engage: Jennifer and Todd!

Jennifer and Todd live near SOCO so it only made sense to shoot around SOCO which was a lot of fun! These two looked like they had been practicing smiling in the mirror at home before they came to the shoot. Big happy smiles were to be found everywhere. It took a little bit of time but we were able to get some really moody shots from the two of them as well. Most people have to work up to smiles but not these two.

SENIOR: Brad!

If you weren't certain, Brad plays football. We had so many shots that had the football in them that I thought about doing a Where's Waldo type book of Brad for my kids to see if they could spot the sometimes hidden, sometimes not hidden football in the pictures. It was WINDY when we went out to the Pennybacker Bridge overlook. Thankfully it didn't seem to effect Brad since his hair was short. You can't feel the wind from the photograph so it all turned out well. After the overlook we went to the Capital and shot a few shots there to give a little variety.

Bride On the Run: Ashley!

Ashley said she loved the name of my business and that's what sold her on hiring me. I supposed it's a good thing that I actually happen to be very good at taking pictures as well as having the ability to come up with memorable business names. I keep coming back to these images of Ashley and marveling. Some were a little obtuse, but I liked them. The thing that got me was that Ashley liked the obtuse ones too. Normally I shoot a couple of off the wall shots just to keep up my chops in the creativity department which 90% of the time ends up not being chosen by the bride and groom but instead ends up on my website. But Ashley like the ones I liked. Weird.

Suggest Names for the new Core 2 Duo

Well, the time has come again for me to build a new computer. Oh, I know what you're thinking, "Build a computer? What kind of madness is this? How dare this photographer cross the line and not just buy a Mac?"

Well, I'll tell you what: Macs are slow. I know everyone in the audience out there is beginning to scream with incredible vehemence but dollar for dollar you all know it's true. I will concede that Macs are beautiful, well built machines filled with quality parts and if you have the money to burn you are certainly able to pay at least twice as much and get a machine that is better than your typical Dell or HP. But what about the custom built PCs that have parts that are the same quality as that in the Mac? Where Windows XP is easily as stable as OS X? Can it be? Of course. Just don't go buy a Dell or a HP because the only way they make money is by purchasing the cheapest parts in the largest quantity.

Now before you all spam me with your, I had a PC and I switched to Mac or Mac has never failed me or I'll never read your blog again posts, I'll tell you a secret. I own more Mac's than I do PCs and as far as laptops are concerned I would never buy anything else. I have a couple of Mac laptops which are grand machines for the typical operation of an office, emailing, writing, taking notes. But they are terribly slow if youask them to even start Photoshop. At that point they come to a halt and that cute little beach ball of death torments you without end. I also have an iMac G5 which is quickly approaching 3-years-old which is considerably faster than both of the laptops but still is no comparison to my 2 4-year-old Pentium 4s. Not even close. The contest is over.

But lately, I've been processing more and more images as things get busier and I'm starting to see the P4 is just not fast enough anymore. So the time has come to build another machine. I hear you mac people grumbling in the background. It isn't going to happen kids. To get what I need in a Mac, it would cost around $4k which makes sure I have plenty of RAM, ample harddrive space, and absolutely a 500GB raid 5 array. I can buy the parts for around $1500 and actually have a faster machine if it is a Windows or Linux machine and it will be equal in stability. Where is the contest?

The naming game has been going on for years. I wasn't very creative when I started. The main machine is Blackbox. The back-up main machine is Mistertime. The iMac G5 used to be White Wonder but is now is Timelord in homage to Doctor Who. The Powerbook is named Gigaflop and the new MacBook is called the TARDIS in reference once again to our new found obsession with Doctor Who.

The new machine will be a Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHZ machine and I'm toying with the name Torchwood, another Doctor Who reference. It's an anagram of Doctor Who. You'll be happy to know that I didn't obsess to that point about the show. The creators did that during early production of the 2005 revamping of the show to prevent it from leaking out to the press. The show was code named Torchwood to throw off any leaks about it's true nature.

I'm open to ideas. Leave posts in the blog. Let me know what you think. But no hate mail about my estimation of Steve Jobs' obsessive compulsive need to control the universe like a young, unmasked Darth Vader in the early years. His vision is nice, but it's just kind of slow.

Engage: Samantha and Dustin!

I love my haircut! And this is the lady who makes me look like a human being. A daunting task no less. When I first met Samantha for her wedding consultation she had curly hair. When I shot her engagements below she had straight hair and I wasn't even sure if it was her or not. She has many looks I suppose. But she and Dustin looked fabulous for their engagement session! We shot in the Georgetown Square, a place that I've wanted to shoot for a while because it was so very quaint and filled with great old buildings including the courthouse which is absolutely amazing. We shot in front of an old antique store that had closed for the day and Dustin made the comment that a good deal of stuff they left out in the front of the store had been there since he was a kid. After the square we ended up at Dustin's family ranch where we shot near the creek and in an wide open green field. It was a fantastic shoot!

Bride on The Run: Claire at the Driskill Hotel!

We popped in at the Driskill Hotel to shoot Claire's Bridal portrait. We happened to pick a weekend during South By Southwest where every bar, club, musical venue and alley is filled right to the top with musicians hoping to be discovered by a label. The second floor of the Driskill had been outfitted with a stage and several Rock Band kiosks where enthusiastic people who were bored with watching the band could live the life for themselves. Crazy.


Claire looked amazing in her Vera Wang gown and we found an amazing window to shoot most of her portraits.

Senior: Will!

Will and I wandered around downtown Taylor looking for interesting places to shoot and it wasn't hard. We found a few places as you can see below!

Senior: Cassie!

I had a lot in common with Cassie. Both of us had moved from Oregon in the last few years. She missed it. I was curious about how she had been adapting to the heat and allergies and she said she wasn't. It was too hot for her in the summer. I understand that. Boy can it get hot here with that bloody humidity. Oregon has none of that and will scarcely get above 100 degrees in the summer though I'd seen it hit 110 more than once. But don't everyone get all excited about this magical wonderland called Oregon and pack up you stuff and move there. There are a couple things that you should know about it: There are no jobs. The weather is dreadful. Now some people don't have a problem with these issues in the least and either make money somewhere else and spend when ever they can in Oregon. Many people don't mind the weather either.

So Cassie was a friend of Madison who had been in a little earlier this month for her senior portraits. They were both dancers, something I just for the life of me can not get my mind wrapped around. It's amazing how people are able to move their bodies with such elegance. I find it fascinating that they understand movement in such an amazing way to make it an art. Much to the dissatisfaction of my wife, I have absolutely no idea how to dance other than in a sort of flopping fish sort of fashion not in the least becoming.

We shot at a new location with Cassie. The Littlefield Home on the UT campus and found it to be a cool place. We ended our shoot with Cassie climbing into a fountain after the sun had set in a party dress!

Two Rings Bind Them: Nycole and Brad at Hamilton Twelve!

I'd been looking forward to shooting Nycole and Brad because of many reasons. The most of which was because we jived so perfectly. Nycole was a beaming breath of fresh air when she smiled and Brad was hilarious with the odd statements blurting from his mouth. Their engagement was fun so I looked foward to their wedding. The wedding was at Hamilton Twelve in South West Austin.





Nycole is one of those people like my wife, Christina, who seems to thrive on life. I'm sure people meet her and want to be her friend every day. She lights up the room with her smile and warm personality. I know, I know. I'm gushing but I think it's pretty accurate.






BRAWNDO FOREVER!