Melissa was really interested in shooting in the studio so we started out shooting at the studio then moved out to a park in Round Rock near the Dell Diamond to give her a little variety in her pictures. Awesome!
I was at Lowes today with Corbin grabbing a doorknob since our front doorknob died actually locking us in the house. at the check-out a lady in a Lowes outfit came up to Corbin and asked him if he wanted a treat. When doesn’t he want a treat? He walked into a small room while I checked out and when I went to find him in the room he was standing on a table with a Lowes apron and goggles. I think he thought the treat was going to be something that he could eat.
Melissa is getting married in a month to the day at the Bella Notte in Round Round. We had a great time shooting in Round Rock and at the Capitol. And don’t worry, Chris didn’t see these before the wedding. I retroactively posted this after the wedding!
Larry was in Iraq until January when he was able to return for some time off back in the states. Meg planned almost all of the wedding by herself with the help of her parents and it went off wonderfully! Their beautiful ceremony was at Meg’s family church, Immanual Lutheran in Pflugerville and then the couple and their guests went to Star Ranch in Hutto for a there reception. Their dinner was influenced my Meg’s German heritage and included sausages. Oh man, the sausages. I’ve shot a few weddings for military families but this one had some of the most outrageous dancing that I’ve ever seen from servicemen!
Blake goes to a high school whose graduating class is very small. They said if you go up to Killeen on 195 and you blink you’d miss the whole place. Seems like there are a lot of places in this state that are exactly like that. Blake, seemed to play most every sport imaginable and was on his way to A&M after he graduated from high school.
I had a lot of fun shooting Raina’s bridal at Laguna Gloria. I’d never actually been there before so it was a great deal of fun to explore and shoot her bridal in a new place to me. The Austin Museum of Art usually has classes into the evening but during Spring Break when we were there they only had classes until early 5 p.m. so we had to shoot when the sun was pretty much at it’s hottest. Can’t say that I’ve actually ever worn a wedding dress but I’ve heard many tales along my many adventures in wedding photography that those dresses have a lot of layers and thick fabric that hold in heat so it’s always best to shoot during a cooler part of the day. Pictures did come out stellar despite Raina discomfort with the heat and you can check them below.
Leslynn and Michael lived in Fort Worth but were getting married at Mansion on Judges Hill in Austin, a favorite place for wedding and great food. They loved our work and wanted us to cover their wedding and shoot portraits before they went to a dinner with their family.
They had a very small wedding. Counting Christina and I it numbered less than ten people. The couple were married in a simple ceremony at Mansion On Judges Hill in downtown and after trading hugs with family they joined us for an hour long shoot with the two of them around the grounds of mansion. It was really cold that day in the usual Texas style of absolutely unpredictable weather and we kept the couple moving around the location so we could keep them warm. The results were fabulous!
I miss her dearly. My last living grandparent passed away on Wednesday very early in the morning. My uncle called at 5 a.m. from California with the news. We’d been expecting it for months. She had been stricken with terminal cancer last January and had been fighting since. In December she had been given two weeks to live but some how managed to last until today.
I was very close to her when I was little. My mom and dad split up when I was 6 and my brother and I went with my mother to live with my grandmother in the high deserts of Southern California. We lived in an adobe house in the desert with nothing in any direction except for an occasion house in the great distance. We lived with her until 1994 when she got a job that took her away.
She was a great adventurer. I think that my zeal for life and never ending search for adventure comes from her. At 64 years old she drove from Oregon to Maine across the country in a beat-up 1987 Chevy Sprint to visit her sister by herself. At 67 years old she got her first computer which was replaced by a laptop in 2008. 68-70 she would drive 50 miles one way twice a week to watch our son Edmond as a baby while we were in college. She loved her only great grandson. She was there when he was born.
Or son Edmond is the one hurt by her passing away more than anyone else, I think. He’s only 8 and is very sensitive. I have a Polaroid picture of him as a baby that Gram shot in our car which I look at from time to time. Seeing him as a baby makes me sad because he’s so different now, but it actually makes me sad even more to know that she was watching him that day and shot the picture. He’s not sure how to deal with the grief.
She had been living in Oregon alone in a spare room of her employers house until late 2007 and was having health problems. No family was left there anymore. Everyone had left the previous year. I got her kids to help her move to California where most of her children live and early the next year she was diagnosed with cancer.
She was a tough lady. Crazy in a lot of ways. She wasn’t afraid of anything. She always had a crazy scheme to make a buck, normally most of which never turned out working. But it never stopped her from trying it. She opened a wooden furniture and kits store in the 80s with everything made by my mother or uncle. I don’t even know what happened with that. I just have images that I remember from it.
I had the opportunity to visit with her on a business trip in September of 2008 and she was still her old self. She thrived on conflict and solving problems. We went to the beach with her for a few hours in Ventura and it is one of the most wonderful trips to the beach in my life. She sat in her wheelchair and talked with us in the sand as the kids played in the water. She went with us to a local fish place in the marina. We ate and talked and sadly had to think about leaving the whole time. When we left we had to explain to Edmond that he was going to have to say goodbye to Gram for the last time ever. I don’t cry often but I hate seeing my kids so sad. It was a very sad goodbye. It makes me cry to write about it.
Edmond and I both were influenced by this woman tremendously. She will never be forgotten. Goodbye Gram. You are in God’s hands.
Her memorial as published online in April 2009.
In April it will be Farah’s two year wedding anniversary. I photographed their wedding at Vista on Seward Hill in April of 2007 and it was a great wedding. Both Farah and Spence were awesome, but life happened and Farah didn’t have a moment to shoot her bridal until just today. We shot at the Barr Mansion, a wedding venue that boasts all organic food with a beautiful old house and an 18th century barn moved from New York and rebuilt to provide a very unique look and experience for a wedding or other event.
Farah is amazing! Is there anything else to be said about her? She is the Austin bridal photographers dream to shoot and the pictures were amazing!
Contact me if you need amazing bridal portraits in Austin!
Alyssa is part of the Pflugerville High School Drill Team and needed some cool fun pictures.
