This past weekend, I participated in a lovely small bridal show at the Hilton Americas in Downtown Houston. It was a really great experience, and it was so much fun to show my work and meet so many brides! I got lots of great positive feedback, and it was so worth the behind the scenes work of getting everything ready really early in the morning! Thanks to all who come to say hi at my booth! It was really nice to meet and speak with everyone. I was really excited to get to show off lots of the things I’ve been working so hard on. I took photo guest books, of course flush mount albums, my matted image portfolios, my stunning Vision Art books, canvas prints and lots of other great samples! One of the funniest things that happened was there were two brides in front of me at the same time who had the same date – I tried to start a bidding war!

My friend Vivian runs The Event House, a well known destination for brides in Houston before their wedding – she’s an amazing wedding coordinator and invitation designer. Not too long ago, I got to shoot some images at her beautiful studio of some of her wedding & event invitations – check them out!

Whoo! What a game! We had a little superbowl party here, and it was so much fun. Admittedly, I’m not as into the game as the average guy so I spent some of the time playing around and shooting some of the guests. My favorite subject was a supercute 8 month old called Christian. She was such a delight, and smiled and cooed most of the evening as she sat in all our laps at some point or another. Here are a couple portraits I made of her at the party.

I’m so so so excited right now! A couple of months ago, I decided to experiment with album cover materials, and I went to a few unorthodox places and ordered different materials – a plastics company, a glasscutter and a couple of others – and I had my favorite album company – Albums Innova – help to bind them into covers for my new sample books. The results completely blew me (and everyone who has seen them) away! Well, as I type this, B&G – whose wedding I shot a couple of months ago, are on their way into Houston from Dallas for the weekend and they’re stopping by. They have no idea I’ve made this kickass sample with images from their wedding, and I can’t wait to show them! They’re also my first clients to let me pick the images for their album and run with the design, which is the model I’m working towards using from now on. Check out a few images of this new sample book!

So, once again I was back on a Houston-Dallas-Houston same day no checked in luggage flight. It was a session with a client of Elegant Nuptials, and as often happens with out of town clients, the day of their e-session was my first time actually meeting them. I met Kim first, and she was really laid back, and when Dele turned up, he was too. They had picked the arts district for their shoot, as they are both huge patrons of the arts out there, and they really had some great ideas and strong opinions which was lots of fun. The lovely Nosa O. of Elegant Nuptials was at the shoot as well – super helpful as usual. I’m really excited to be working with them at their wedding – it promises to be a really incredible weekend. But before that, we’ll shoot Kim’s bridal session – she’s so psyched about it, I’m sure it’ll be a blast! Oh, on my way back to the airport after the shoot, we were running a *bit* late, so I checked in for the outbound flight on my phone, and they actually scanned my boarding pass right off the phone screen! I love toys! Ooh, and we developed a wedding web site for them too – check it out at www.kimanddele.com!

I don’t often shoot an engagement session but not the wedding, but when i met Liz and Kola, they had already made all the arrangements for their wedding, but they were psyched about having me shoot their e-session. We went out and had quite a blast, and now that it’s over, I’m super bummed that I won’t be seeing them get hitched.

I’m all excited, because today I finalized my new business card design. The fancy new paper is on it’s way, and everything is a go. I think i’m going to try to shoot the process of making my new cards, and I’ll post that too. One of my favorites is called Attack Duck – you can’t miss it. It’s so very interesting having this whole array of old cards – it’s so cool when a new prospect comes in clutching a 3 year old card. And I know it’s an old one because I keep changing them.

In the meantime, check out my past in business cards I’ll post the new ones in a separate post as soon as they’re ready.

A little while ago, I got to shoot my friend’s family photos – their daughter is by far the most active child I have ever had the pleasure of shooting – it was so much fun, and surprisingly exhausting. We got to the point where we stopped trying to set up posed shots because she was so super-wiggly. We just watched her closely and if she paused we would all jump into position and try to make some images! Here’s what we got.

I totally ripped this blog post idea off a friend a few minutes ago – I thought it was brilliant, and I couldn’t resist. I did however (as you can see) resist cleaning and staging my desk – I just shot it as it was. On there are my monitors, keyboard, mouse, tablet, Powermate, NuLooq (I love toys!), Y’s new Leapfrog Didji thingie I’m trying to set up for her, and a case for it, my watch, keys, wallet, some CF cards, card readers, notes on an ongoing project, stickies to remind me what I need to do today (didn’t remember to actually read them!) an old hard drive, a new hard drive, $3, a Pocketwizard thingie, Altoids, 2 different kinds of lip balm, hand cream, wrist rest, White House Custom Color sale sheet, floss and a set of coasters I never use. The only thing that’s missing is a stack of unopened mail and receipts, because I have vowed not to let that pile up any more.

This was a pretty fun way to kill a few minutes while I wait for about 1.5 terabytes of stuff to transfer to new drives. I think I’ll do it again sometime. Maybe you should do it too, for the fun of it!

When Ke’er asked me to shoot him and his lurvely lady Marquita, I went from flattered and honored to terrified and nervous. You see, Ke’er is an excellent photographer in his own right – some of you may have met him assisting me at sessions and / or weddings. So on the one hand, I thought it was fantastic that he thought enough of my work to have me shoot his own portraits but then I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to impress him. He picked the urban, gritty location, the wardrobe and then wanted to start bossing me around – I wasn’t having any of it. I bossed him around and here’s what we came back with!