For a family Christmas present this year, Hannah and I wanted to try out some new props, and she had this amazing field of grass in her yard. So, we set up in the grass and we could both tell we were going to end up with some wonderful photographs even before we started photographing. The boys were having fun and smiling and the grass was just amazing. Isaac was totally engaged with the process, and Eli thought it was pretty cool too. Willing subjects, beautiful setting, fun props, great ideas… Doesn’t get much better than that! I spent the whole day with them, and even got to help Eli learn to ride a bike without training wheel that day. Being a granddad is pretty neat.

While the bride’s party and the groomsmen are still getting dressed, Hannah and I shuffled back and forth capturing some individual portraits. Here’s a pretty cool one in the youth annex:

To start, when the bridal party was all ready, we created some fun portraits of Sarah with her maids and Ben with his guys around the church. There’s this really cool wall in the lobby with lines and it just seemed right to use them as a “line-up” wall. And out back (so we could keep the guys separate from the gals) we used the thin rock wall as a place to create some great portraits of the girls.

And I love catching the look on the groom’s face when his bride comes in the door. It’s a trick keeping the cameras pointed in every direction at once; everything happens fast right about this time!

And then there’s the handoff; dad is very pleased.

For the photography during the ceremony I had set up my flashes in the sanctuary so we could augment the beautiful light coming through the skylight. You can see the wedding party up front, lit from above by the skylight and in front by two flashes within the draped tulle. It’s a beautiful ceremony!

A friend could not make it to the wedding, so another friend used her iPad to FaceTime the ceremony to her. That is a pretty cool use of technology!

Once the ceremony was over and the happy couple had left the sanctuary, all the rest of the wedding party and family danced out of the room. Everyone enjoyed the fun.

Before the reception we took Ben and Sarah out front to play around with the rock wall again and while I was photographing them I looked and saw Sarah’s niece watching from behind the doorway. I was elated to capture this portrait.

The sendoff was done with bubbles, which always make for fun photographs:

This first session had one of my favorite actors, Kyle Chandler, who has been in the TV series Early Edition and Friday Night Lights. The chosen model was Jane, a vivacious little girl who already rides horses as a part of her life. We met at the Red Arena hippotherapy property and walked around looking for a great backdrop. My first choice was down by the water for some great Texas thicket. We let Jane ride down and back from the arena on the horse, which she loved.

As soon as everyone got in position, Kyle and Jane hit it off right away and started interacting almost faster than I could react. In such a situation, I find it’s almost beside the point to “pose” people; we just let the scene unfold while they played around. Jane took an immediate liking to Kyle’s hat, which you can see in her hand in this photograph. Kyle grabbed Jane’s cowboy hat and plopped it onto the very-compliant horse’s head. At the moment of this photograph, I was just loving the fun and interactions between the two of them. I think we created a great portrait of life for the calendar. This image ended up as the main image for the month of December:

Here is one of the images from the walk back up the path to the arena after we had the main photograph:

As we worked, it was pretty warm, but we had fun and captured some great moments that they will be able to look back on and remember this time in their lives. That’s what we do; create portraits for life. I love doing that!

He’s pretty cute!

Just hangin’ around, lookin’ cute!

Newborn baby Isaac smiles for me as I capture this portrait of him trying to go to sleep.