So I did the only thing I logically could: I called up Kaila’s mom and asked if they would be game for a just-for-fun shoot in… oh… thirty minutes or so? Luckily, I caught them on the one day of the week that had nothing going on. They scrambled to get ready, I scrambled to get ready. We met up and headed to the nearest location I could think of: a nearby elementary school.

The elementary school actually ended up being quite a good location. Between the various play ground and picnic areas filled with old oak trees, the area was pretty scenic. Pair that in with a few good brick walls and chain link fences and we were golden.

The sun set pretty quickly but we had enough time to get a slew of beautiful photos. Time well spent on a random evening in good ole Central Texas.

Emilie’s friend Kim Lubas is a hair stylist just arriving in the Austin area.  She was interested in doing a collaboration with herself as hairstylist, Emilie acting as model and me at the camera.  It sounded like a great idea, so we scheduled a time to meet up.  

The goal for the shoot was to basically show off what Kim could do with fake hair (which if I hadn’t seen her putting the hair in, I would have never know the difference).  Some of the hair was different colors, some was naturally colored.

One of Emilie’s friend who is interested in photography came along to hang out and watch.  Kim decided that she was going to give him a new hair-do, so we got him in front of the camera as well.  My then-fiance-now-wife Lindsay arrived home from work while we were shooting: Kim grabbed her as well and added a purple streak to Lindsay’s dark hair.  I was lucky I was photographing otherwise I may have gotten grabbed too.

The shoot concluded and we said our goodbyes, tired but happy with the way everything went. It ended up being extremely difficult to narrow down the images, but we persevered and found a good selection of winners to add to Kim’s portfolio. My thanks to Kim, Emilie, Chris and Lindsay for a great time and a great shoot.

Crisis successfully diverted.

With such an album title, I knew that we needed warm earth tones and preferably a lot of rock which is far superior to dirt in many cases… including this one.  Tom told me about a place out in The-Middle-of-Nowhere, Central Texas that served as an amazing arts and antique community called Round Top.  In Round Top, there is an area called Festival Hill which has an amazing concert hall that looks like it straight out of Lord of the Rings and a chapel hall that was originally built in 1883 before it was moved to Festival Hill.  The area underneath the chapel is now a coffee shop with great stone arches and a vaulted ceilings of stone.  Best yet, it was remarkably cooler than the 100 or so degrees that the Texas summer was throwing at us.

We had a relatively small shot list: a image of Tom with is marimba, a couple of portraits of Tom with a relatively clean background for copy text and an image of his mallets that could be used as the art on the actual CD.   Here is the first shot that we put together for the album cover, followed by what it looked like after the title and other text was added in by a graphic designer later.

With the two following portraits of Tom that we did inside the actual coffee shop, we allowed plenty of space on the stone walls to add track listings and write ups later.

We were trying to find a good way to incorporate Tom’s signature mallets.  I noticed that the paving stones that made up the floor were nice and textures with the scrapes and scratches of many feet and chairs.  So after choosing the most optimal paving stone, we placed the mallets down on the floor.

The images turned out great; we wrapped up and went to the local hangout for a bite to eat and a cold beer.  Thanks Tom for the great shoot and good time.

You can listen to Tom’s new CD here.

I was hooked.

The first Hunger Games movie had just been released, so there was a wealth of information online that helped us pull together costume and wardrobe ideas.  I met Lauryn and her mom to go over various jacket, pants and accessories options.  Together we pulled together an outfit that is pretty darn close to the movie.  After finalizing the wardrobe, we checked out a nearby creekbed near their home, full of trees and vines.   It was the high of summer in Central Texas, so against all hope, there wasn’t a drop of water to be seen in the creek.

Two days before the scheduled shoot, massive storm system moved in over Austin and dumped a ton of rain; it was great for the trees and the rivers and creeks, but not so great for photography equipment.  Rain was scheduled for the entire weekend.  On the Sunday of the shoot, we took a gamble and were rewarded with a four hour dry spell when the clouds held on to the rain!  The shoot was on!

We had devised a couple of story boards to help structure the shoot.  First, worked a scenario where Katniss was exploring the creek….

Katniss runs away from the death and fighting after the Hunger Games began… (special points if you can find Rue)

We also worked a scenario where Katniss was resting at the foot of a tree at night…

We also decided we needed a couple of movie poster shots with Katniss looking heroic.  The other girl you see in the tree is Lauryn’s younger sister, who is playing the part of Rue.   FYI: It is apparently very hard to look heroic when you can’t stop cracking up.

Without a doubt, the shoot was a success.  With happy smiles from Katniss and Rue, we packed up my gear and headed back to their home where Lauryn treated us to expertly made coffee and just the right amount of cream.  I am very thankful to announce that no one managed to stumble into any poison ivy while on set.

When I delivered the images to Lauryn and her mom, they were absolutely thrilled.  They had no idea that the creek near their home could look like a movie set.  In the end, there was no other option than to get a nice canvas gallery wrap of one of the movie poster images to grace the walls of their home.  For the rest of the images, I made them an album that they could share with their friends or leave on the coffee table at home.

Thanks to Lauryn and her mom for such a great shoot.  Collaborative and creative shoots like these are an absolute blast.  I am blessed to be able to be part of them.

With around 300 dancers, most of which are in multiple classes throughout the week, this shoot takes a lot of preparation and a lot of attention to detail.  There are three different stations: one for headshots, one for individual poses and one for groups.  The dancers get their photos taken during the same time as their regularly scheduled class, and with a potential of up to four classes going at the same time, there could be a small army of tutus and hip hoppers waiting their turn.

With the sheer amount of dancers running around, I had to call in the reinforcements.  Enter friend and photographer Michael Gonzales of Gonzo-Shots Photography.

In the time-lapse video below, you can see Michael and I scurrying around as we set up for the big week.

I am very happy to say that the week went off without a hitch.  The dancers had a great time, the parents had a great time, and everyone loved the images…

…except for maybe these guys. They are much too sassy to love their group photo.

I had them over to my studio setup, we sipped on wine (excluding the son), chatted, laughed and captured some great head shots for their upcoming audition.  It was a great night of shooting head shots with friends; here are the results.

So we checked our schedules, and bright and early one Sunday morning I headed down to South Austin with my car overflowing with my photo studio to his house.  After hauling in the gear, setting up and a few test shots, we got a number of good head shots for the back of his book and any publicity he may need.  We were going for a slightly edgy, editorial feel; I’m pretty sure we nailed it.

After breaking down and reloading the car, we headed over to a restaurant for lunch.  It was a good way to spend a Sunday.

By the way, go buy Robert’s book; you won’t regret it.

Without further ado, I present to you a sampling of said work.