The day I shot this photograph I was not actually out “shooting” but simply playing tour guide to some out of town guest. I actually captured three marketable images that day. Two exterior shots including the garden (one vertical & one horizontal), and a photograph of the “Texas Marquee” inside. As a side note, I was not actually supposed to shoot inside the the museum, but I just could not help myself. Subsequently they became a vendor selling my images in the gift shop including the clandestinely photographed interior shot. I’ll include the Marquee images in a future post. You can see my other Texas History Museum Images here or other Austin images here.

I got a call from the National Guard Magazine today to license one of my ‘Austin’ images for their magazine. Although they were looking for a night image of 6th street, perhaps I should have also suggested this one?…
Actually this is yet another pin-up from the session I did recently along with a group of other photographers. I have so many great images from that session that I’m really having a hard time limiting the number of images I post. It really was great fun trying to recreate this classic vintage style. You can see the same image here. with a different treatment. Which do you prefer?
If you are interested, you can see more of my portrait work here.

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.

If you are ever in Austin Texas & looking to duck in out of the Texas heat, check out the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum. It’s tucked between the University of Texas campus and the Texas State Capitol on Congress Avenue. With three stories of interactive exhibits and an IMAX theater it’s a great place to duck inside and spend a bit of time exploring. While you are at the museum, check out the gift shop & pick up one of my photo gift cards.

Last Saturday I finally got around to photographing another Austin Icon, the Pennybacker Bridge . Although I only live just a few minutes away I had never made it a point to actually climb the hill overlooking the bridge until early last Saturday morning when I joined a group of other Austin photographers that met there as part of a group shoot. Although it was a bit cold & blowy, it was nice shooting with a group of 20 or so other photographers & then comparing images. It’s pretty remarkable how you can take a group of people & put them in basically the same place & get such a variety of different images. It brought me back to a photo assignment I had many years ago in college. The class went on a field trip to a local park & as we were walking the professor had us all freeze in place & shoot a roll of film (typically 24 or 36 shots for those that don’t go back that far…) all, without moving our right foot. Obviously the point being, there are beautiful & interesting images all around us if we just take the time to actually see.