ENGAGE! Nycole and Brad!

When Nycole first contacted me, I knew that she was going to be fun. I had no idea at all how similar her and her fiance, Brad were to my wife and I. I had this idea to shoot in one of Austin's most desolate and decrepid suburbs, and knew as soon as met this couple that they were the ones to shoot in it. It's like SOCO, but older and without any of the urban renewal going on. I'm talking about Taylor, Texas. It's the ideal location for a high fashion shoot and I decided to give an engagement a whirl out there.



We found out that out taste in film was very similar as well during our almost 3-hours of shooting. 'Brondo has what plants crave,' was the line from a movie that just kept us laughing the whole time.





We tried a few new lighting techniques during their shoot and was very happy with the results. It's great to know how to shoot in any condition under any light, but it's even better to know the camera so well that you don't let it do any thinking for you anymore.

ENGAGE! Amy and Mat!

Amy and Mat were fun and energetic. So energetic in fact that they never stopped moving. We shot around SOCO and tried to get a little variety up and down Congress.



They had geat personalities and I am looking forward to their wedding! This is one of my first experiements in shooting in SOCO.

ENGAGE: Jessica and Jason!

I have cousins both named Jessica and Jason so I immediately shortened their names to what I used to call my cousins to break the ice since I had never met the groom before: Jess and Jace.





We met at Zilker Botanical Gardens and just explored the whole place shooting pictures around the place.

TWO RINGS BIND THEM: Janna and Ryan at Villa Antonia!

They were so excited the day of the wedding. So many crazy things were going on as I shot the girls transforming into their bridesmaid attire and having their hair and make-up finished. Janna seemed totally cool and collected.

Villa Antonia is great place for a wedding though it is a long way from anywhere. These two got married, ate and danced until they were too tired to keep on going and left for their honeymoon.

Charlie!

I don't know if Charlie is short for something, but Charlie is a great bride. She kind of looked like Kirsten Dunst. Her make-up lady had done an aweful job and she had to redo her make-up before the shoot. She did a fabulous job! Though she was little shaken from the experience with the make-up lady, she doesn't look a bit of it in the images.

Her and her fiance did a engagement portrait with us earlier in the year and I knew that shooting a bridal portait was going to be fun. We visited a couple of Austin's most overshot photography locations, and as usual, shot something that looked neat and cool and creative. I tend to feel odd if I shoot too many times in the same place with the same pose. ACK!

And the children shall scream!

Edmond and Corbin are my two boys and they are sometimes very loud. They woke me one school day with a whole lot of screaming about a tie for dress like your teacher day at school. At least that's what I thought it was. Edmond is in first grade and dressed in an ill fitting suit from the 70s with a t-shirt with a tie attached to the collar. If didn't have the tie he'd of looked like a college professor. It was adorable and after he got home from school I decided to shoot a few shots of him in my back yard to try and new lighting technique. That's what photographers do, ya know. Always seeking the perfect light that makes people look perfect.


I really didn't want Edmond to have the super model look but that just seemed to be all he could do. I guess that's a good thing if ever needs to be dramatic in life. It hasn't done me a great deal of good, but you just never know.

TWO RINGS BIND THEM: Farah and Spence at the Vista at Seward Hill!

April is beautiful this year and the day of Farah and Spence's wedding was a fantastic temperature for a wedding. The Vista on Seward Hill was a beautiful location. I liked this wedding so much I am planning on making a sample album from it to show prospective clients. Just take a look.

TWO RING BINDS THEM: Denyse and Andy at the Salt Lick Pavilion!

Andy and Denyse had a really laid back wedding at the
Saltlick Pavilion. They didn't have cake and they weren't traditional at all, but had their own idea of what a wedding should be like: A really big party. And that's what it was. After a short ceremony out near the creek, they all flooded into the pavilion, the bar opened and the music started and they danced. There was a lot of dancing.

Janna!

Janna is one of the few people who drove with me all the way into Austin to do her shoot without my wife to keep conversations fresh and exciting. I tend to not talk as much as my wife which is pretty normal. Christina had to watch the kids that day, but we did some improvising along the way and shot images that represented Janna very well.





Even though she had a killer smile I loved the way she could smile with her eyes and emote so much without changing her expression. She could pull off serious, forlorn and really happy without trying all that hard.

Lisa!

Lisa came out of the now where. She had been married in May of 2006 but due to the fact that her dress only showed up a week before her wedding she never had time to get a bridal portrait. Apparently the photographer for her wedding didn't want to shoot her bridal portrait ten months later so she gave us a call.


We shot at the Texas Capital and down Congress against a really cool wall next to a pay parking lot. It was great! Lisa was a fantastic, happy lady who seemed to really like very different images than I would have expected which made her shoot a lot of fun!

9th Anniversary Cruise! WOOHOO!

Yep, It's been nine years of wedding bliss with Christina as my beautiful bride. Nine years since I watched her walk down the aisle that I've photographed so many other brides walking down. It's amazing.

Click to see the pictures so long as I haven't removed them from our server.

For the first time since we've been married we celebrated our anniversary with a big trip without the children and chose a simple 7-day cruise to the Western Caribbean leaving from Galveston. It was the most relaxing trip I have been on in years. If you're looking for 24-hour parties and non-stop talking and entertainment like my wife this may not be the best thing for you. The music and the shows were kind of enemic and seemed to have the soul sucked out of them and were never loud enough (of course this comes from a bass player who played one too many years next to the crash cymbals and snare drum). It didn't really matter to me because I wanted to spend most of my trip sleeping in and enjoying the silence. But my wife dragged me out to acouple of 'fun' day trips in Costa Maya, Belize and Cozumel. The Costa Mayan stop was a 6 hour tour of Mayan ruins, which I named the Mayan Death Camp Tour because I barely made it back to the ship with a fever and every muscle in my body aching. In Belize we spied on the Prime Minister's family photographer until he invited us in than we talked for a while about what and how we shoot. In Cozumel we walked around Cruise Ship Row where everyone spoke English and wanted to sell us something for American cash. They weren't all that keen on the almighty credit card, but we did find a couple of people who would take the cards and came back with a couple of gifts for family. The day we were there there were five cruise ships docked right next to us. So my guess was there were between 10k-15k people dropping in on the little island at that dock. They had cell phone reception there too.

My favorite part of the cruise was sleeping and swimming after midnight and then more sleeping. Then of course there was eating. And eating and eating. It took up half our day most days. I was kind of getting a little bored with chewing after a while and just wished they'd make it all into a milkshake: Lobster milkshake, salmon milkshake, feticcini alfredo milkshake. Chewing just took too bloody long. Most of the time it was time for another meal as soon as we were done with what we were eating. We did a lot of walking around the deck day and night trying to keep from dying from the incredible intake of butter that was piled up in front of us morning, noon, night, midnight, and everywhere inbetween. Oh!

We hope to go on another next year and take the kids. I think they would like it a lot. At least the eating and swimming part.