Now for something really different…
For those that follow my ramblings and are not aware, in addition to being a full time photographer, I exchange 15-20 hours a week of my time working at United Airlines for health insurance, free flights & pocket change.  My days start around 4:am and I am on my way home by around 9:am. Some mornings I am in a white shirt & tie greeting passengers at the ticket counter. Some mornings I am in what I refer to as my “village people” outfit pushing airplanes around & gently tossing baggage. Since this morning it was a record 11 degrees (F) outside in Austin Texas, of course, I was out on the ramp. I snapped this photo on my iPhone to send to my wife while I was waiting for the deicing crew to finish clearing the frost off the wings before I pushed this aircraft out & set it on it’s way to Chicago. My wife liked the photo & asked that I post it, so here it is. Just a little self portrait on a cold winter day.

Happy New Year to all! Recently I had the opportunity to do a portrait session for a wonderful family that will soon be moving out of their beautiful home complete with pond and relocating to a wonderful new home a few miles away. I was asked to do some environmental portraits that would not only show the family, but also a bit of the beautiful land where these children have been raised. It was a fun request helping preserve some memories in the process of out with old and in with the new. On this first day of 2010, I see the young man offering us the oar as a metaphor for opportunity.
I hope your new year allows you to grab the oar and create many beautiful memories.

Todays post is a bit more personal. Eleven years ago tonight I met my beautiful wife Beverly. It’s been the best 11 years ever and every year has been better than the last. Thank you Beverly for the love & support that you show me and those I love. All those that know you know what a lucky man I am to have you in my life.

It was great fun having the opportunity to photograph Kalee & her mom Colleen. (You may remember I posted Kalee’s yearbook shot in a previous post.) Originally the plan was a Senior Portrait shoot for Kalee. When I saw the great interaction between these two I could not pass up the opportunity to shoot a few mom & daughter shots as well as a few individual portraits of her beautiful mother Colleen. Ahhhh I love my job!

Where’d ya get those eyes?…

Dreamin’

That Beautiful Smile…

Peek-a-Boo!

Mom’s Magic Eyes

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Last week I had the pleasure to photograph another beautiful young High School Senior for her Senior Portrait. After High School Kalee is off to nursing school where with her wonderful intelligent humor & disposition I have no doubt she will be a tremendous success. I have so many great images of Kalee (and a few with her beautiful mom as well) it’s hard to post just one.  No doubt you will be seeing more of Kalee here in the future.

This portrait is of Willie & Cody Braun of Reckless Kelly. It was great fun getting to go into the recording studio & shoot some images of these amazingly talented brothers while they worked. I really enjoy photographing musicians. I suppose that I really just enjoy being in the company of other artist. Plus, with musicians you more often than not are entertained while you work. You just can’t beat it.
I am often asked if I also shoot portraits. You may have noticed from my site, I tend to shoot a lot more ‘pretty things’ than ‘pretty people’. I suppose in any business you tend to get a bit ‘pigeon holed’ but actually, yes, I really do love photographing people.

My son Matthew just graduated from Texas A&M University & was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the United States Army. I don’t normally use this site for ‘personal’ photos, however, I wanted to publicly congratulate Matthew & take this opportunity to express what a proud father I am. You may checkout my Smugmug page for photos of the graduation & commissioning ceremony as well as some photos from final review.

This past weekend my wife & I flew to Kansas City to attend the wedding of my nephew Austin & his new wife Keisha. My sister Dorothy & brother in law Steve were kind enough to act as our chauffeurs while in town and on the way back to the airport we drove past these giant badminton Shuttlecocks or ‘birdies’ that are on the grounds of the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Since both Dorothy & Steve are members of a badminton league, Steve & I hopped out to take this quick photo.