Back in the Saddle

I'm finally home from Texas School, and I'm. Worn. Out. It was 5 awesome days of tons of photography instruction, a load of networking, and just a little fun. Just a little. [grin]. It's a good thing it's only 5 days - my body was going into shock from all the early mornings - both on the getting up and finally going to sleep. And after all the free fried/barbecued/greasy/grilled food I had all week, my digestive system rejected the first inkling of green, healthy food I ate when I got back Friday night. I can't even begin to guess what my calorie intake for the week was, but I'm half expecting a call from the FDA to do a case study on me any moment now.

It's good to be home, but I'm already looking forward to next year's school.

My friends Tina and Cecily went down with me this year, and we stopped a couple times on the way home to snag a few images. Here's a few of my favorites. We're such western wanna-be's.

We found this incredible old abandoned gas station near Normangee, TX. So cool, and so much character.




I love this shot of the gas pump with Cecily in the background. Check out the price of gas back in this station's hay day... $.31/gallon. Good grief - I need to get a horse.


Cecily just happened to have these sweet boots on during the trip home. Perfect for this shot.


Again with the boots.












Oh yeah, and Cecily grabbed this image of Tina trying to teach me how to 2 step early in the week. Dear Lord, I was terrible... further proof that God has a sense of humor. Sorry, Tina.


Check out Cecily looking all sultry.


And finally, here's Tina enjoying a little Spasmatic action.

Back To [Texas] School

'What's the deal? How come he hasn't posted anything in a week??' I know all 6 of you out there have been wondering where all the new posts are and what's taking so long. In my head I'm hearing (in a voice fit for scolding a dog), "Bad blogger! Bad, bad blogger!!"

Sorry about that. This week I'm at Texas School on the Texas A&M campus in College Station with about a thousand other photographers from all over the country. This year I'm in Bry Cox's class, and he's one of the best around. Tons of awards. Amazing work. Sharp business skills... I could go on and on. I honestly don't know how he does it, because he's got a thriving one-man-show photography business and still has time to travel the country for speaking/teaching engagements as well as making time for his other talents including accomplished Jazz musician and authentic western pistol/rifle shooting ace.

Here's me with Bry doing what guys do... hanging out in from of men's bathroom doors.

"Photographing kids is exactly like hitting on women." ~Bry Cox.

This might be - no, is - the funniest analogy I've heard all week, but stay with me here... I think it's true (at least for the kids part). Often times when you first meet little kiddos at a photography session, they can be disinterested, shy, or scared of you. So, to get them to warm up to you, you've gotta slowly break down those barriers, so you talk to them for just a few seconds and then you walk away and leave them alone. After awhile, when you ignore them, they'll let their guard down and begin to show a little interest, and eventually they'll hopefully warm up to you.

I'll let the ladies out there be the judge on whether that works on them, but I know from experience it does work with kids. And don't shoot me, I'm just the messenger. We all laughed in class about that one, though.

It's been a long week with every day starting at 8:30 with class all day and then some type of social event ending late each night. I'm beat already, and it's only the end of day 3. But I'm having a ton of fun, too.

Here's a few more images from our event on Monday night at the Texas Hall of Fame.

This is my 4th year coming to Texas School, and this year my friends Cecily and Tina made the trip from Dallas to attend VIcki & Jed Tauffer's class.


Each year the Texas A&M Wranglers come out and put on an incredible show. TO call their stuff line dancing is an injustice. They are simply amazing and show more coordination and athleticism in 02 minutes than I've shown in my entire laugh. It's really part country-western dancing, part acrobatics, and a whole lotta fun.






The highlight of the night was the Spazmatics. The best way I can describe these guys is a cross between Devo and the guys from Revenge of the Nerds. They were freakin' hilarious and played all the great 80's songs. They rocked!

My 1st White House Gig

So I was recently invited as part of a group of about 500 photographers to visit the White House and photograph as much as I wanted. Okay, so it was actually at the George Bush Sr. Presidential Library in College Station, and I wasn't technically invited as much as simply given free entry to the museum that was housing this travelling exhibit during a vist with a bunch of other photographers as part of a class at Texas A&M, but, hey, I still got to photograph the White House.

The exhibit's called The White House In Miniature, but there's nothing miniature about the size of this incredibly detailed model of the most famous house in the country. It's 55 feet long by 20 feet wide with the rooms inside being exact replicas of the real thing complete with tiny working TVs in several places.

What was intresting to me is how big the White House actually is. When you see it on TV or in photographs, sure it looks like a good size building, but it doesn't look huge. Lemme tell ya, it's huge.

I also felt very patriotic as I stood for 84 minutes watching a video documentary on the history of the white house and all that's been added to it/changed over the years. I know what your thinking... 'you stood for 84 minutes to watch a documentary? On the White House??" I'm here to tell ya, yes, I did. And even scarier I'd probably do it again if I had it all to do over. It really was fascinating, and I highly recommend the exhibit if your in the College Station neighborhood.

Back in the Classroom...

It's that time of year again... time for reuniting with old photographer friends, making new ones, free dinners every night, free FUN every night, and learning tons of new photography 'revelations' and techniques from some of the premier photography instructors in the country. That's right, it's late April which means I'm at Texas School again here at the Texas A&M campus in College Station.

BTW, for all you Aggies out there, could someone please coherently tell me with a straight face what in the world "Gig'em" means? And while you're at it, what's with the "Whoop!" every time you mention the school name. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for school spirit, but honestly I'm confused when I'm supposed to say "gig'em", "whoop", so I find myself waffling between the two and simply mumbling "gig-a-whoop" in embarrassment.

Where was I... oh, yeah... Texas School. This really is one of my favorite times of the year. Being around and in class with fellow photographers for a week is an amazing experience. Now, I know what you're probably thinking, 'A thousand photographers hanging out for five days talking about f-stops, ISOs, Rembrandt lighting, dragging the shutter, etc... wow, must be a real party'. I'm always amazed, though, about how much fun this conference is. Think about it, a thousand people who are paid to be creative know how to have a good time.

For example, where else do you get to take part in armadillo races?


Seriously, though, this week is a blast, and these are some of the friendliest people you could ever meet. One of the things I love most about the photographers who come here is that everybody's very open and willing to share tips, tricks and strategies to help each other grow. It's not like some professions where everybody's very territorial and secretive about what they're doing. People helping people is the name of the game, and photographers - especially those at Texas School - are a picture of that (no pun intended... well, sort of).

Okay, gotta run... I'm off to meet up with my classmates for our final night of free food and good times.

Here's an image of one of the couples from the Aggie Wrangler dancers from last night's event. Amazing stuff - country dancing on steroids!


Oh, yeah... "gig-a-whoop'em". Or something like that.