Pamela and Will

I enjoyed spending some time photographing Pamela and Will this weekend. We photographed at a new location for me, which is always fun. The location was the meeting place for the River Oaks Garden Club, and the gardens were beautiful. Thank you to the ROGC for letting us photograph there.

Hope you enjoy!

I'm trying to decide which cameras to take on our trip to Georgia...

An ongoing project

I finally got my film scanner working. I have an older Imacon Precision II virtual drum scanner, and it makes beautiful scans of my 4X5 film. However, it is from the computer days of long ago, and uses a SCSI chord. Remember those? Anyways, I have a converter so it will work with my computer, but the converter stopped working with the new Mac software. I finally got it to work with my laptop, which has the older Mac software (Tiger) on it. And so I got to scan some new work for one of my ongoing personal projects!

The first picture is the church picture I mentioned the other day. It was taken near Baytown, TX, east of Houston. It is the latest of a series of images that I've taken for a project I began about a year and a half ago. The other two images I've printed so far for this series are of a blue Mustang and construction barrels on the side of the freeway outside of La Grange (the other two photos shown above). I took a photo in Galveston last summer before Hurricane Ike hit. It is a landscape photo of the beach, with an orange Jeep Wrangler parked facing the water. In the distance is a mother and daughter playing along the water's edge.

I'm still not exactly sure what the project is about. These scenes all strike me in a curious and odd way, and I'm compelled to photograph them. They all seem to be tied together somehow. There is something subtly bizarre about them all. And yet they are very beautiful to me. I anticipate that the photograph from Galveston will fit together with the other three, however, I haven't seen it yet. I still have to scan it! I'll try and get to that next week.

My wife, Regan, my mother-in-law, and I are traveling to Savannah, Georgia next week, where we will spend a couple of days before heading to Florida. Almost all of Regan's family is from Savannah, and I've heard so much about it. I'm looking forward to the trip, and will be taking several cameras. I'll try and make a couple of posts with some photos while we are gone, if I can find internet.

A quick note about my main website--I'm having some trouble with resolution on some of the images that are displayed throughout the slideshows. I apologize about this, and am trying to get it fixed so that all of the images look as clear and sharp as they really are! My web designer is in Europe right now, but will be coming back in early July. When he returns we're going to find the solution.

I'll try and post once more before we leave to Georgia. I'm taking some engagement portraits this weekend in the River Oaks Garden Club Forum gardens. New locations are always fun, and these gardens are supposed to be very beautiful.

Christina

One more senior photo post...

I grew up with Christina's brother, Andrew, so it was a lot of fun to be able to spend some time taking her pictures!

Miles

I hope all are well this morning. Today I'm catching up on updating my website and blog with some fresh images. These are some of my favorites from Monday's Senior Portrait Session. I'll have a couple more posts throughout the day...

Lauren and Kim

Here are some more senior portraits that I took Monday and Tuesday of Lauren and Kim, two twin sisters. They wanted to stay indoors as much as possible (smart!), so we used a lot of window light. I got Kim to go outside for a while, and I think it was worth it. The lighting was perfect.

Hope you enjoy them! I'll post some more senior pictures tomorrow, and that church photograph that I mentioned last post. Have a great night.

Will's Senior Portraits

It is senior portrait season! The calendar is filling fast! If you haven't made an appointment yet, please give me a call.

Here are some senior portraits I took on Tuesday afternoon.

On another note, I was out a couple of weeks ago in Baytown, photographing commercial real estate. On the way to the site, I came across a really interesting and somewhat strange scene. There was a really pretty classic white church right next to this run down building on cinder blocks (the old church, perhaps, storm damaged?). Anyhow, the scene grabbed me, and I pulled over to make a couple of exposures with my 4X5 camera. I'll post the image of the church soon. I think it is going to fit into an ongoing project that I've been working on.

Yellowstone Academy

The past two springs I've worked with students at a Houston school called Yellowstone Academy, teaching them about photography.  Yellowstone Academy serves underprivileged children of Houston, and is an incredible place.  Check out their website, www.yellowstoneacademy.org, for more information.

I worked with the after-school program, 4th and 5th graders, and would teach once a week, every Wednesday.  The program this spring lasted from March until school was out in May.  The students got to photograph using point and shoot cameras and film.  Each week I introduced a new project for them to work on.  I also tried to get them to think about basic composition, lighting, and why they were photographing their subject.  Despite having different projects, most of the students took most of their pictures of friends and family.  When I'd spend time with a student, discussing and choosing his or her favorite pictures, he or she almost always picked photos of friends or family as their favorite ones.  It is always fun for me to see these children get excited about taking pictures, and I hope they learned something from the exercises.  I will continue to work with Yellowstone in the future, and will continue this photo program as long as we can.

At the end of the school year I chose two of each student's best images and printed, matted and framed them.  Each student got to sign their work, which is by far my favorite part of the program.  They get so excited to see their work printed large (8X10s) and presented neatly in a frame.  When they put their name on the piece they get to take ownership of their creative work, and get to experience that great feeling of accomplishment--something every artist enjoys when a project is completed.  After all of the prints are signed, we hang up the exhibit in the hallway for the students, faculty and parents to enjoy.  Soon I would like to create a small traveling show, and have different venues around Houston host their work.

The pictures above are some of my favorite pictures from the show.  I hope you enjoy them.  I have to go up to Yellowstone soon to take down the show, but I will take some pictures of the hanging show and post those soon.

Enjoy their work.  The artists, from top to bottom are:

Kelli- Student jumping from slide

Jeremey- Leaves and night sky

Jeremey- Shadows on the groun

Jasmine- Girl in the sun

Jasmine- Backflip

Jai Ceri- Father asleep on the couch, under the many family photos

Makayla- Portrait of children taken through yellow slide

Shaquayia- Green slide

Emerance- Flower

Jai Ceri- Basketball hoop

It is amazing what these 4th and 5th graders can do!

Zelda and Henry's Engagement Portraits

On Saturday I photographed engagement portraits for Zelda and Henry.  Their wedding is coming up in September.  We had a great time together, and ended the night with a margarita at El Tiempo.  Thanks, Zelda and Henry for the marg.  Here are several photos from the session.

Location: Discovery Green Park, Downtown Houston

Welcome to my blog...and my first post

Hello everyone,

I've decided to start a blog.  I never thought I'd see the day.  I'm not too much of the blogging type.  I'm one of those people who wishes they wrote, kept journals and all.  However, I'm a very active person, and always seem to keep myself too busy to sit down and write.  But hey, gotta give everything a try, right?

I've viewed a lot of blogs now, trying to figure out what I want mine to be about.  Some I've liked, others not as much.  So to begin my blog, I'd like to express my vision and hope for this blog.  Since photography for me is both an avenue of personal expression and art, as well as my business, I would like this blog to contain a balance of my personal projects and my client driven work, as well as random observations about art, life, other artists' or photographers' work, and even some posts about the photographic process and what I am learning (or have learned) about photography.

The picture above is of my dog, Georgia (she has grown a lot since this puppy picture).  Georgia is my wife and my first child (or so you would think so if you saw us with her).  She is also my assistant, and comes to work with me every day, patiently waiting for me to finish enough work to take her outside and play with her.  I've posted this picture for two reasons.  One, I just enjoy showing everyone how cute our dog is.  But more importantly, because Georgia often teaches me valuable life lessons.  She always gives me such wonderful enthusiasm, and loves me so passionately and innocently.  She seems to give the same passion, and keeps that wonderful innocence, in all the things she does in her life.  She is a reminder to keep true to my work, to do the things that fuel my love and passion for photography.  And also, she reminds me to be innocent and try new things (a lesson that my Photo 1 and 2 students also reminded me of this past spring).

I hope you will keep up with me.  Thanks for viewing, and have a great day.  Until next time...