2009 Seniors
This was the week of seniors...high school seniors. I had a lot of fun this week photographing seniors all over the South Plains. We are getting close to the end of this senior season with the number of days dwindling down. Some of the seniors can tell you exactly how many days are left. A little advice to next year's seniors: Remember, we take senior portraits all year round. Don't wait too late to get yours taken for the upcoming year.
Here are a few of my favorites from Cheyenne's session. Her light blue eyes just pop in all her photos! We had to fight the wind with the outdoor shots, but we got lots of great shots with her hair blowing.

Here are a few photos of our sweet little girl who is getting bigger every day. These shots are from our Easter Special March 26 and 27. We had over 20 families come. I am sure our bunnies are much more worn out than we are. The set was much more simple this year than in previous ones, but I think everyone liked it. I would love some input for next year's set. What do you think?

Dancing in the Depot
I took some fun photos of Ashton down in the Lubbock Depot District right at sunset. The colors in her dress matched the colors of the neon lights. This was one of my favorites from the session. She goes to our church and has been a friend of ours for years. She is about to Graduate from Lubbock Christian University.

Zig Ziglar

We attended the motivational seminar Get Motivated featuring several
speakers during the day including Rudy Giuliani, Dr. Robert Schuller,
and here the legendary Zig Ziglar. It was a refreshing surprise to
find that all the speakers were motivated by God first and foremost.
We are ready to leave here with a positive attitude in every part of
our life.

Reese has come a long way since she first came to us. When she was born she was diagnosed with a rare genetic disorder and she required heart surgery when she was only a few days old. Now over 6 months old in these photos, she is doing well and obviously a very happy little girl. She will go back to her doctor soon for a check up, but everything appears to be going well. Please keep Reese in your prayers.

Swingers

It's not very often that I hang out with the guys. I work in an office
with women and 90 percent of our clients are women, so I am pretty in
touch with my feminine side. This morning after dropping Christian off
at gymnastics, I met up with Michelle's family (Logan, Brock, and
Jackson) to hit some golf balls on the driving range. The weather was
great and no one was hurt so I would say it was a good day!

Jackson
and
Tyler

These are the two boys of Michelle (our employee of the month!). We were at MacKenzie Park in Lubbock after a session when we came across a few huge dandelions. None of us could resist blowing the little seeds off and watching them fly. The boys had a little trouble blowing without gobs of spit flying at the same time! I spared you those shots because they were a little more gross than they were cute.

Bright Colors

Tawnya & Ross May recently brought their three girls in for a session. I've been photographing them since they were little. The bright stripes they wore would have been a no-no a couple years ago, but now it seems that bright colors are everywhere. The stripes definitely add a whimsical look that is great for children. I photographed them on the white background and saturated the colors to really put the attention on them. The light used is a ring light (a really funstrobe that is often used in fashion photography for the even illumination and halo it adds to subjects). I really liked the way it turned out. It almost looks like they are floating.

The Rat Pack

Tonight after seeing The Rat Pack is Back with our family and our
friend Janis and her boys, we got to see the cast up close. Leave it
to Juliet to fearlessly push her way to the front of the line to pose
with Joey, Dean, Frank and Sammy (so to speak). Juliet loved the
singing and I'm sure Christian got a kick out of the off-color jokes.
But seriously, the singing was very good. Thanks to Janis for
inviting us.

Miley was our test subject for our recent per portrait special. She took a little coaxing to get out in the middle of the background, and she jumped the first few times the strobes went off. As we started ignoring her she became a little more comfortable as long as Jill was nearby. She follows Jill around like she has bacon in her pockets!

Little AngelsWe had our annual Little Angels special this past weekend. there was a good turnout and we got to meet several new kids and their parents. Here are a few shots of Juliet. She and I tried to get a good shot that looked like she was flying by having her jump off a stool onto a big air mattress. Then I caught this next one with an all too common expression of her leering over her shoulder. I had to add the halo on that one. She wanted to do a smiling shot too. I don't know where she gets it, but I will keep working on her training with the cheesy fake smiling shots, but it makes for a cute anyway. Of course I am not biased or anything. Christian thinks he is way too big to dress up as an angel...he may be right.

Congratulations to Christian for doing a great job in Dallas for his first meet of the season. Out of 21 boys in his division he placed in four of six events. He did very well against some big time gymnastics academies from the DFW area, This past weekend, here in Lubbock, he improved in most events, with a 14.7 out of 16 on rings. We will be in Dallas again this weekend for the next meet.

The Grand Canyon

Jill and I attended a national photography convention this past week with several other fellow photographers. Jill had to fly back early (with a short layover in Las Vegas!), but on our way back, they rest of us made a detour by the Grand Canyon. We got there before sunrise and were able to all take some great photos. This is one of my favorites with severals mules being lead back up out of the canyon by a guide. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground, but the temperature was very comfortable.

The Mayan Riviera
At the end of this summer we took a trip to Mexico with the family at the same time our salesperson, Michelle, went on her honeymoon at the same resort. Despite being incredibly hot and Christian having a slight case of viral menengitis, we had a great time. Juliet made a friend from England at the pool and Christian got to see a few topless sunbathers on the beach! We spent a little time photographing Michelle and Logan in their wedding clothes and some casual outfits. This is our third time since we have been married to go to Mexico and it always seems to be in July or August. After the first time we swore we would never go back in the summer, because it was just so hot and humid. So if you are planning a wedding or honeymoon in the tropics, especially if you want us to photograph it, please consider a slightly cooler time of year. I hear September or March is nice there.

Shoot Ourselves
Our local photography guild, the SPPPA, recently paired up photographers to shoot each other. Leslie Kitten and I were partners, so we photographed each other's families. This is their favorite from our shoot at Buddy Holly Park at sunset. You can see our photo session in the previous blog below.

We had our portraits taken recently (for a change) by a photographer friend of ours, Leslie Kitten. Our idea was to be a rock band, so we got some instruments together and went shopping for some cool clothes. I think we all had a great time. These are some of our favorite shots.

Of course, I am holding drumsticks and Jill a French horn. Those are the instruments we played in the Tech marching band, where we met.

We've had two new babies in our studio this week. These are the birth announcements we printed for them that are going out as we speak. Congratulations to the parents!

Cool Shades!

We took an afternoon off before school started back and saw Journey to
the Center of the Earth in 3-D! It was really impressive, and the 3-D
effect added a lot to the movie. We wore the 3-D glasses around for a
while until we couldn't stand them any more.

Congratulations to Emmy Powell for winning Most Photogenic with our photos in the international finals of Our Little Miss in Florida. She was the best out of over 130 other girls! That's fantastic!

I am so bad at updating our blog. I really love the idea of regularly posting what we are up to at the studio and personally, but it is just so rare that I am sitting in front of the computer with nothing more important to do. I am really going to try to get in to the habit of keeping a little more current.

Here is a recent portrait we took that was a lot of fun. I have photographed this grou pof cousins since the girl on the right was 4 years old. Every five years they update the portrait that their grandparents have of them. They are just about grown, and in another five years they will all be adults. It is scary how fast children grow. It scares me just to think of mine being grown. I can remember when Christian was just a baby and I could sing to him without him knowing if my singing was any good or not. Now he wants to know when he can have a cell phone.