I love these urban photos of my friends and neighbors, the Lightfoots. We had a lot of fun in downtown Houston. . . until I lost my car keys! It is pretty much not a photo session without some sort of adventure, although I would rather not be on the hunt for keys. I found them in the exact spot where I took the upper lefthand photo–in plain sight right by the Occupy Houston campsite. They had been sitting there for at least 30-45 minutes! I think I learned my lesson.

I photographed this brother and sister combo last year around this time. I was so glad Mom contacted me to photograph them this year. She does a really good job of capturing them each year and they are good sports about being photographed. Both of them are so photogenic and such a pleasure to work with. Happy holidays, Kaitlyn and Arin!

Caroline is a pretty special young lady to me. She was my daughter’s daycare teacher last year. I had the honor of shooting her bridal portraits last weekend at La Hacienda, where she will marry on November 5. Here are a few that I love from our session:

Congratulations, Caroline! You look beautiful. And many thanks to her sister Kathryn who played the dual role of photo assistant/mom to toddler Delilah. She did both with finesse!

Hair and make-up by Your Beautiful Face:  www.yourbeautifulfaceco.com

One, two, three times I saved Rocky. But not yesterday. I couldn’t.

I wrote those three sentences the day after I had Rocky, our dog, put to sleep. It has taken me a year to come back to this post and finish it. Here it goes:

One, I rescued Rocky from the Houston Humane Society (http://www.houstonhumane.org/). If you want a pet, I encourage you to go there, or SPCA, or anywhere there are animals in need of a home. These organizations do the best they can to find homes for orphaned animals. There are too many of them. Rocky would have most likely been put to sleep because he was a big dog and about one year old. Thank goodness I found him.

Two, when Rocky was about 7 years old, our vet removed a cancerous skin growth from his belly. It bought him 6 more years.

Three, In January of 2009, Rocky had major surgery to remove a large mass of non-malignant fatty tumor from his abdomen. Dr. Hallie Moore at Oak Forest Veterinary Clinic is the most amazing veterinarian. She spent hours in surgery with him, and definitely saved him from a lot of discomfort and pain. The fatty tumor would have eventually killed him if she had not removed it. She gave him almost two more years of a good quality life. I highly recommend her practice:  http://www.oakforestvetclinic.com/staff

Sadly, in October of 2010, we had to say good-bye to Rocky. He was with us for 13 years. We will never forget him.

I’ve photographed Mr. Jake since he was a little more than one year old. Now he’s almost 8 and Mom Jen wanted to try out his Halloween costume for some updated photos. Jake is going to be Sid Vicious from the “Six” Pistols!! Awesome! Jake even nailed the Sid snarl for a pose! I had to bring out some old “retro” Jake photos from past shoots for Jen to see how big her boy has grown. I love ya, Jake! He’s such a sweet boy.

Elena is an artist. She creates. So it’s only natural that we would hit it off, being kindred spirits. I talked to her on the phone about how important it is for the photographer to quickly develop a relationship with his/her subject, that we would be a bit nervous together at first, but hopefully we would warm up and become comfortable with each other. That’s exactly what happened!

Elena, you were such a joy to photograph! I really felt in sync with you during our session and I’m so proud of these images. You made me feel comfortable because you trusted me and let me try new ideas. I hope you have an unforgettable senior year at Kinkaid.

Here’s a sneak peek of our session: