Friends, Families, Festivals & (Craw)Fish

I just got back from an awesome weekend where I got to visit some old friends and meet up with some new ones. I met Karen and Sharon - both from Sugar Land, TX - several months ago as part of a photography forum I'm a member of. We've become friends and I was honored - and a bit nervous since they're photographers as well - when they asked me to come to Houston to photograph their beautiful families. I'll post images of their precious little ones in upcoming posts, but I'll warn you, you may very well melt when you see their kids. Sooo sweet and adorable.

I took the 42 minute flight down to Houston on Friday and was stoked to find out that the guy sitting next to me on the plane was Jack Gruber, one of the 5 staff photographers for USAToday. (just a warning that if you check out Jack's site - and you should - a few of the images are a little graphic, especially those in the Irag, Afghanistan, Sunami sections) What are the odds? 42 minutes wasn't nearly enough time to hear all the amazing stories he has of the places he's been, the things he's seen, and the people he's met. Truly a down to earth guy and a pleasure to talk to.

In Houston, I was able to visit and stay with my friends Eric and Liz, and I can't thank them enough for their hospitality. I met Eric when he used to work at Texas Instruments and through him I met Liz, and they were gracious enough to trust me to photograph their engagement images and Liz's bridal images a little over two years ago when I'd never done any bridal photography. Not only did they pick me up and drop me off at the airport and give me an awesome room to stay in, they also gave me a car to use for the weekend, cooked me breakfast both mornings, took me to the annual Old Town Spring Texas Crawfish & Music Festival, and gave me unlimited play time with their sweet Schnauzer, Macy. How cool is that?

Here's a few images from the weekend.

Here's yours truly, Liz and Eric at the festival. It was pretty sunny out that day (probably somewhere in the neighborhood of a gazillion lumens if I had to guess), and Eric offered to take one for the team by letting me where his cool Oakley glasses while he sported the Elvis specs he picked up when they passed through Graceland a couple years ago. Thank you, Eric. Thank you very much.



Yah. Ummm, this is why I don't eat crawfish. I like my food a little more processed thank you very much.



Macy!!! She was my buddy the instant we met.



Meet Karen, Jen & Sharon. Jen is part of the same photographer forum and lives near Houston, so she met up with us for Sharon's session on Friday night and then went to dinner with us afterwards. My hat goes off to these ladies. I don't know how they do it - each of them is married with multiple children and still find time to have a photography business!

BTW, this photo was made possible by the kind folks at Apple. Long live the Mac and the iPhone!



Karen and Jen getting ready to assist with Sharon's session on Friday. This answers the question no one's been wondering, "Just how many photographers does it take to hold a 24" white balance disc?"



After dinner at Sambuca we walked around downtown Houston Friday night just to see if we could find any fun shots. (BTW, for anyone that's curious, all these night-time shots including the "iPhaces" image above were shot with the Nikon D3 with no external flash using only available street light @ ISO 5000.)




Having a moment of Zen on a street corner downtown. I couldn't keep my balance for more than 2 seconds, so not sure how Karen got this one.



Karen looking all saucy on the construction scaffolding.



Uh... don't ask. This is what dorky photographers do when they've got a camera and time to kill.



Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Oh, c'mon... gimme a break. Tell me you weren't thinking it.)



Too easy. Dumb, I know. But easy.