CATEGORY location
I’ve always thought renting a house or a string of hotel rooms for a reunion would be so much fun, rather than keeping a huge house all year to host everyone every so often. Plus you get to choose gorgeous and serene locations, which is exactly what this family did over the Thanksgiving holiday in a villa in southwest Austin near Dripping Springs, TX. They laughed a lot and were great listeners and quick, so we got in a lot of sets with the the full and smaller groups and couples in spite of the quickly fading early winter sunset light.
Time flies by: when I showed up to this family shoot, the newborn that I photographed was already a 2-year-old toddler running around and beginning to talk! Their boys and those gorgeous eyes were full of fun and personality, and my skills to capture artistic and natural candid moments were put to the test as I got to just follow the little ones around as they played. I always appreciate easy-going and laid-back parents because it helps bring the emotion of the family through in the photos. Plus they chose great wardrobe colors and back drops near their house and nearby preserve areas in southwest Austin.
The owner of Westlake’s Lone Star Stables had me out for a sunset family shoot this fall after my daughter attended camp there last summer. A gorgeous little ranch surprisingly tucked away in the heart of Westlake matched by a stunning family. Beautiful children with a fun, playful attitude surrounded by a place they love to be. With the kids getting frequent photos with their horses for shows, the mom decided it was high time she had something with her and her spirited horse too!
I have been with this precious family since maternity photos for her first child. These were taken at their home in Spicewood, Texas. Certainly I hope this won’t be the last session with this gorgeous group of people: even their dog smiles well. This is their fall holiday card, 6-month baby, 3-year toddler shoot: multi-tasking!
I’ve known Kim since she was about the age my oldest daughter is now. Seeing her step out of the restroom at the Texas State Capitol in downtown Austin dressed all in her white wedding gown was an other worldly experience! I realized in a few short years that will be over after just blinking, my own daughter will be ready to be getting her bridal portraits taken. I can only hope she finds as much happiness as Kim has found with Landon. Thank you for letting me be part of this time in your life and share in your beauty and joy!
Kim is the daughter of some long-lost friends of ours (lost all the way in north Austin!) who made the trek to see me (all the way in south Austin) at the Salt Lick Cellars garden and vineyard in Driftwood, TX for an engagement shoot to her college sweetheart Landon. With a great easy-going attitude and dry sense of humor the shoot was a lot of fun, and a bit of a walk down memory lane. My oldest daughter is the age Kim was when she used to babysit for us, and suddenly I see how fast the time has flown! Congratulations to you both on your next adventure in life, and all that stress you gave your parents during your early teen years seems to have proven worth it. Can’t wait to see you in your dress for your bridal!
Dripping Springs has some fantastic central Texas landscapes for photos, and the Highpointe community has a beautiful pond, trail, and park path system with gorgeous photo ops. The only thing that could make it better is a gorgeous family to go in it! With two incredibly happy smiling boys, we spent a lot of time trying different sets and poses because they were so cooperative. Here are some of my favorites.
Oh, Jessie, you had me laughing as much as Krystal, which makes taking photos difficult! When the camera wasn’t shaking with my mirth, I caught a few serious moments and especially enjoyed the intimate exchanges of tenderness when the two of you forgot we were watching. The only sad part was driving home to Austin because I thought we would be moved into our new home in Kyle, TX near the venue in San Marcos, TX and that 45-minute drive felt a lot longer than the 15 I was planning on last fall when we booked. But who cares? I got such a kick out of attending and documenting your wedding. Huge congratulations to you both, and you will certainly enjoy life together even more now that you are together forever.
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Beautiful Ruth booked the San Antonio Mission national park for her bridal, and what an amazing opportunity to shoot there with a such a beauty. Her unique dress and cathedral veil created a dreamy mood with the quiet stone cathedrals behind her. I loved her quiet but quirky sense of fun, and the exchange of ideas we both had for shots we wanted to capture was custom photography at its best. Good luck on your upcoming wedding, I can’t wait to be there!
Every year I vow I will hire another photographer to take amazing photos of my family, and every year I end up with a self-timer on a tripod. If you’re a photographer reading this and want to trade a family session, please email me! But I finally got around to holiday photos this fall, and even made it before December! Plus I’m really thrilled I finally got to shoot at this awesome old building on 290W on the way to Dripping Springs, and that all my kids got individual shots. Cobbler’s kids, shoes, check! Arms crossed pose, quadruple check.
Old Glory Ranch in Wimberley, Texas is exactly the kind of old time Texas rustic ranch chapel you’d expect in these here parts. We adore Wimberley with its antique downtown charm, but mostly for the almost lush nature scape along the lazy creeks and rivers that crisscross this area. Complete with boots and a wagon, these bridal shots will be displayed at the reception for all to bask in her beauty, and I promise those are her real eyes with no assistance from Photoshop!
This family reunion was on gorgeous Lone Man Creek in even more gorgeous Wimberley, Texas. Everyone had enough personality to fill up two photo shoots, playing and laughing together. And a gorgeous group of people they were, too, easy on the camera!
Miriam and Joseph asked for a fantasy location for their engagement session with lots of water and greenery, so when I suggested the fairytale Dunvegan Keep in south Austin it fit their personalities perfectly. I love romantic shoots because of the tenderness the couples always display so openly for the camera. It seems that at those times my soul mate can do no wrong, and that’s important to offset the crash back to reality when he and the kids are screaming while I work in Photoshop ignoring them all wondering what their problem is! But back to my sweet, romantic, simply in love couple. No pretenses, no power struggles, just in love. Thank you for trusting me to capture that!
The cobbler’s son has no shoes, and the photographers family never lives up to the client work. Part of the interference is of course directing the scene while running into it before the self timer fires. Perhaps it’s because there are just so many people to direct! But I fear the real issue is the sad truth that my own children are not nearly as anxious to please the nice lady as others’ children. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that I’m only a nice lady with other people’s children.
I guess the main point here is that I’m sure you want to capture your own family having as much fun as we are! I saw some seed pods on some of the flowers tonight, so hurry before it looks more like a pea patch than wildflowers.
Congratulations to Johnny & Natalie on their wedding! They were wed at St. Helen’s Catholic Church with a reception following at the Williamson County Courthouse in Georgetown, Texas.
What a spunky and funny couple, it was almost hard to take photos because we were all laughing so hard! I think it was the first reception I’ve attended where cowboy hats and Texas accents were mandatory (yes, we had the DJ call them all out for a group photo!) Yet especially later in the evening, once the happy couple was ignoring us and we went into stealth photo ninja mode, there was such a lovely tender affection and sense of relief that it set my own heart to melting. My own 13th anniversary was the day after the wedding, and I thank you for giving me the perfect reminder of how wonderful it’s been! And thanks to Tyler Schmitt who is such an experienced and expensive wedding photographer for agreeing to come be my second: you were amazingly easy and fun to work with! Betcha didn’t know he was hiding back there!
View their full galleries for the wedding and the reception
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A bridal in Historic Downtown Georgetown in February created a challenge finding outdoor greenery, even in Austin, but we thanks to Forever Gardens 6970 Ranch Road 2243, Georgetown, TX (512) 868-3373 near the Williamson County Courthouse, we found a spot that still had some color this time of year. A little nudge from Photoshop, and it’s almost springtime! This lovely, adorable bride will be tying the knot on Saturday, congratulations!
Steve Wolf of the Wolf Stunt Ranch and Firelake Event Center put on a great show with his Science in the Movies presentation now performed at over 2,000 schools in North America. He demonstrates all the science concepts needs for the Texas TAKS in a fun educational way that really gets the kids excited and involved. Who wouldn’t appreciate all the guys putting themselves at risk by hoisting, dangling, falling, shooting, and the best of all, igniting and fire training? All for the kids, right? It looked pretty fun to me too, relaxing while all the child labor did the work!
Science Day 2010 was filled with demos for the kids to learn various scientific concepts. My kids were grateful for the invitation from Steve Wolf to come to the event, ditch a little of their own school, and enjoyed the Austin Nature and Science Center presentation allowing us to get up close to other little critters.
The top 20 Nike marketing execs from Portland and around the USA visited the idyllic Wolf Stunt Ranch and Firelake Event Center in west Austin for team building exercises. What do you get when you put 20 ultra-competitive Nike employees in an active outdoor games facility and ask them to work together? A lot of team destroying! By the end, bragging rights went to all as they had to figure out how to solve the last puzzle as a group. I’m not sure what happened to the guy holding the homemade bomb, I didn’t want to spend enough time near it to ask what that was all about!
The R family, owners of Austin Signco, found my portfolio online through our local Dripping Springs homeschooling group, and this shoot was the first time we had met in person. Their twins are absolutely delightful! Adorable, well mannered, full of exuberant energy, and the parents were down to earth and incredibly friendly. I always try not to show just how much work a photo shoot is, managing everyone and capturing not only their emotional interactions while making them all look good, but a family like this makes it fun. Honestly, I can’t wait to get to know them better and let our daughters play.
Interiority Complex interior design and home staging owned by Ashley Whittenberger has staged a beautifully remodeled 1930′s Travis Heights home offered by Creath Partners in downtown Austin with stunning skyline views on Town Lake. She had a fantastic idea that in lieu of the staging décor which are to be removed from the home later this month, she ordered 6 20×24 enlargements framed and displayed on easels in each of the formerly staged rooms. This way a vacant home can be staged to advertise well on the MLS image listings, and during walk throughs the same photography can be displayed to help it show better. Marketing is key in real estate, and in vacant homes especially prodding the imagination from large empty rooms into livable areas is essential. Since the realtor’s original photos were no where near large enough to be blown up at high quality, Ashley called me in with my big Nikon guns to make big pictures!
I must admit that while RE photography is some of the most technically challenging and physically demanding photography I do, I fall in love every time! Bringing rooms alive in this small scale is so rewarding, but I especially love elevated exterior photography to bring a unique look to the images.
A beautiful 11-year on her birthday! At this age they look so grown up, and they look so young, like miniature adults. That pre-braces smile crosses the bridge between woman and girl better than anything else.