I love his little outfits. they fit his personality to a tee! Anyway, I absolutely adored photographing this little tyke and I hope you enjoy the photos that I took of him.

J’me came in a couple of days before her due date for this shot. I told her that I kinda hated her for looking so incredible!!! But I could never hate her, I just totally love her.

Anyway…here is a preview of one of her images. hope you like it as much as I do.

What a gorgeous day, few clouds in the sky, few people on Mount Bonnell, cute couple. Tiffany and Ryan are absolutely adorable. She is a spitfire and he is her rock. What is there at Mount Bonnell?  Pretty stairs, nice views of Austin, nice views of the lake and the 360 bridge all in the same place.

Anyway…here are some photos of their engagement shoot. enjoy.

Have you ever gone to the source that created that “thing” to let them know they inspired you?  If you have, awesome. If you have not, why?  Recently, after 20+ years of being inspired by something made by one person, I decided to write to him to let him know. I didn’t do it before. I thought he was unapproachable, I thought….he’s too famous – and frankly, I never thought to do it because I am sure that he has inspired many other people. I have credited this person for over 20 years as being one of my inspirations and yet I have never told him pesonally.

Today, I went to his website and I saw the “contact” button and I thought. DO IT. Write to him and let him know that his work has been a big part of my life for over two decades and almost three decades and let him know that his work was was inspirational to me.  After I did it, I felt good. I have no idea if he will receive my email or will respond but I know that I let someone know how they affected my life and my work as a photographer.  That inspired me even more!

I challenge you, my readers, that if there is someone from somewhere in your life that has inspired you and you never told them that you should just do it.

Who am I talking about?  Well…that is for me to know and you to find out on March 1st, 2012.  

William, from Flaunt Your Site has done it again. Every year, in February, we re-do my website because it is the right thing to do. Stay up with the times. He has been doing my websites for the last three years and he has been doing websites for photographers all over the world.

William is an expert in web design for photographers and SEO as well. He does a great job for me so he deserves a shout out. Some new areas are the “Idea Center“…more to come on that.  He changed the featured wedding area under my weddings, he changed my portrait section completely.  A couple more things are coming.

So for those of you that like to put a face to the name. About 1 year and half ago, I was in California and  hung out with William and one of my very best friends, Maria. We were in LA and we went to the Disney Opera House and it was super late and there was no light so, I took their portraits using the light from a sidewalk billboard.  Anyway, here is an image of William from that day so that you will know what he looks like.

For those photographers that follow me, if you want a great website and some great SEO for your business, talk to William. I think you will be pleased. He has done sites for people all around the world, his rates are TOTALLY reasonable and I love the end result.

William, if you are reading this, thanks again. I love it.

Claudia and George did great! The cover was shot in Cedar Park, pretty close to my studio actually and so I want to thank the folks who loaned us their front door. To protect their privacy, I will not mention their names but they have an incredible door and it was so nice of them to loan it to us for 20 minutes.

Here it is…what do you think of it?

One of my customers, Greg,  calls me up and says “Maria, we found a huge box of slides of my Dad in Russia in either late 50s or early 60s and I found this one that I want printed.  I took it to get scanned and it doesn’t look that great and this is really important to my family. Can you take a look at it?”  I said “sure”.   So, Greg sends me a digital scan of the negative and I think… wow, cool photo.  I HAVE to do something for him on this. we have to make this look better.  This is the digital version of what he sent to me from the scan that he had received.  Didn’t look too bad but I thought I was going to have to either restore a completely red image or turn it to black and white. So..I asked him to bring over the negative and I would see what I could get done.

As part of my photography business, I do offer high resolution scans. We performed a high resolution scan and this is what we got.  Better than what he orginally gave me, it was better than what I had hoped for.   I was so excited and when he saw the scan, he was thrilled. The photo below is the scan that I was able to get.

After that, the photo restoration began. I had a great time working on this image. When I completed it, he was super excited and got a copy for his Dad and some of his family members.  This was truly a fun project.  Here is the final result. I was really happy with it. The nose area is hard to see but it was not the easiest part but got it done. I did keep an “old school” feel to the image with the colors because I think it fits.

hmmmm…..

Well, the idea center is a place to show folks some different ideas on how to group portraits or just to see them on walls. So, I grabbed a bunch of frames that I sell and then some plain frames as well and put my photos in them and put them on walls in various rooms to help people out. The idea center will change every so often to keep things fresh.

So…if you are bored and want to look at random photo hanging ideas, vist the idea center. What do you think about the idea center? leave me a comment-I am curious.

P.S. those cute funky frames are something that I sell and I can get them in many shapes, colors and sizes…

Have you ever seen those specials on tv called “Where are they now?” Old actors…rockstars working at Starbucks or kings and queens of some multi-million dollar empire? Well, this is my version with little cutie patooties that have no care in the world other than…where’s my food?

Each of these babies came in within two weeks or so of each other . Here are some photos of what they looked like a few months ago and here is what they look like now.  Have fun

Connor Lee, 4 days old

Connor Lee, ~6 months

Finleigh, 4 days old

Finleigh, now ~6 months

Charlie, ~1 week old

Charlie, now 6 months old

Colton, 4 days old

Colton now, ~5 months

Clementine, about a week old

Clementine now…about 6 months old

It is so much fun for me to see these babies as infants and then watch them as they grow through my lens.. I hope it was fun for you too.

Nikon hired me to be a speaker at the Austin Photo Expo. I did some off camera flash classes (2 to be exact). I was showcasing the Nikon flash system and then I showcased one of my favorite things which is the off camera flash light modifiers that you can get from Westcott: The Halo and The Apollo.  In Austin, I focused on babies with these two modifiers.. here are two photos done at the photo expo. The little girl in the hat was done with the Halo and the little boy was done with the Apollo.

Dallas Photo Expo

Westcott hired me to speak at the Dallas Photo Expo where I did two classes for them. The first class was with off my Nikon camera flash and I demonstrated the Halo light modifier for my flash. This is the photo that we took, I cannot tell if I like the color or black and white versions better…so I have put both on here. the model is my lovely friend Elyssa who came out to model for me. I first met her when she was modeling for a campaign for La Chatuise, a wedding dress company and I have been friends with her ever since.

The second class that I taught was solely with one spiderlite. I showed how beautiful the light is.  I really do love continuous lighting, it is soft and so pretty. Here is the color and black and white version of the photo that we took in there.

All in all, two expos…great crowds.  All in all, spoke to about 600 people overall and I hope I inspired at least one of them