ENGAGE: Claire and Jeremy!

Claire and Jeremy had a lot to laugh about. I would tell them to curl up together like a pretzel and they would start laughing. I would tell them to look off wistfully into the distance and they would start laughing. We'd run out into the middle of a street with cars and people looking on and they'd start laughing. Oddly enough they did a fantastic job of looking just the way I wanted them to even though they kept laughing. It's a good trait to be able to laugh all the time. These two have no future as Goth.






Our shoot ended somewhat abruptly when black clouds came from the North and blotted out all of remaining light from the sunset. After a few minutes it started to rain and then wail on us and it was a run through the rain to the cars as quick as could be.

ENGAGE: Stormy and Jeremy!

They came to me with ideas of their own and I just thought they were awesome! I expected to hear the twiddling of dueling banjos as I got further and further away from Austin, but everything turned out alright and the pictures were fun and creative! Stormy wore her mother's wedding dress pinned onto her with clothes pins and Jeremy wore a shirt obviously meant for someone smaller of Stormy's. These two really had no limit as to what they would do. Their wedding is at an old electric plant converted into living and work space in New Braunfels. It's going to be pretty cool!

Kids and Stuff: Sophia!

Now, I myself tend to shy away from shooting babies, but Christina is all too happy to be ooey and gooey around these small adorable drooling creatures. Sophia (what a fabulous name!) was so good natured during the entire shoot and became an instant hit with my wife.

Kids and Stuff: Sifuentez Kids!

At a park not too far from my home we met up with this family and shot their kids as they ran in the field. This is another of Christina's shoots where I get to be the official reflector dude, though I did shoot several of the images in the blog.

Studio Fun without the sun

We haven't shot that much studio since moving to Texas, so we hauled out the lights and shot a little of me and the kids this evening. I'm not used to being the subject of pictures and do a much better job behind the camera, but I came up with a few pictures for my wife as she brushes up for a maternity session.



Some of the expressions I made were definitely inspired by the movie 300, I think.




Now the kids on the other hand were nuts but they were extremely cute.

ENGAGE: Matt and Rhonda!

I was worried that it was going to be intolerably hot today which would make their shoot miserable for them, but the mellow summer continued and the shoot awesome. Oddly we found out today that Zilker Botanical Gardens had suddenly decided to charge $50 for a photographer to shoot in the garden. As a principle I will never pay $50 to shoot at a garden that is publicly funded by my outrageous property taxes. We only found this out the day of the shoot when we met Matt and Rhonda there to shoot. We left immediately to the Capital then went to the warehouse district and got much better pictures there then we would have at the Botanical Gardens. Those gardens are nice, but only nice enough to pay $3 to park at, nothing more. Sorry City Of Austin, but I'm a bit of a rebel.

TWO RINGS BIND THEM: Judy and Lawrence at the Creekside!

So we spent the night in Victoria the night before and left late in the morning to find 183 underwater on the way to Judy and Lawrence's wedding. We had to get all the way up to Driftwood and there were a couple of roads that were closed and we had to make massive detours that filled my heart with fear because I was venturing into unknown territory and I was freaked out about finding water and floating away in my little yellow Tupperware looking car.


But, God is good and there were no delays at all in getting where we needed to go even though we drove an extra 40 miles.






Judy and Lawrence were fairly quiet. I was having a heck of a time reading them when we first met. They didn't laugh at any of my bizarre humor. But I think they were just a little shy and I'm a little weird. But their ceremony was probably the sweetest one I've seen this year. They had family from Asia at their wedding and they had planned on the wedding being an opportunity to witness with a very Christian message and Communion. They said this was probably the only time these people would ever hear the Gospel in any way. It was very touching to see that and I felt very honored that they chose me to shoot their wedding. It was a great way to end my summer and start off my August vacation that I so dearly needed.





They had more guest photographers at this wedding than any wedding I have ever been to.

TWO RINGS BIND THEM: Jessica and Jason at the Raisin L Ranch!

Google maps kept giving my the wrong directions and was trying to make me go 40 miles further than I had to for Jess and Jace's wedding in Victoria, TX. One thing I've learned about Texas is that every city in the world is somewhere in Texas. Victoria takes the cake as the most humid, sticky place that I have ever been. Not having air conditioning was not an option here. After we found the right directions on Mapquest (Obviously the definitive source for mapping information) we drove down to Victoria and as we got close a weird scum built up on our windshield and I couldn't drive anywhere without my wipers going. It never ceases to amaze me what drives all of these little towns in the middle of no where. Jessica and Jason grew up in this town of 60,000 and returned for their wedding. Other than the humidity, it was a great place. Lots of old historical buildings. The Catholic church that the ceremony was at had these fantastic weathered metal doors. I loved the shots there. Then off to this weird converted metal barn that was flipping awesome for the reception, the Raisin L Ranch. They partied and danced until midnight when they at last left to sleep a little before their 8 a.m. flight in Houston the following morning.