Zulu at 100 next weekend!

amigos dogs and arrow frost

I've been slammed lately with work, but can't update some of it until it publishes. Last week I shot portraits of a professional hockey player for the DMN and later in the week a runner who was hit by a truck 2 years only to fully recover and continue to run. Both great shoots with outstanding people. This weekend I was flown to El Paso by MAP, a political strategy firm, to shoot Texas Senator candidate Jose Rodriguez. It was whirlwind trip that encompassed an early flight, an all day shoot at 7 locations, an outstanding steak dinner, budding professional relationships, bomb promo photos and "good coffee."

These serious photographs are on the way, but in the mean time check out these snaps:








Some of the crew of dudes came back in town recently and we headed out to the lake for some R & R which included shooting a bow and arrow. I never hit the target, but my target was folded can on top of a carpet. Good times all around and a beautiful place even in winter during a drought.


Frost on Maria's car in winter. It hit 17 degrees this January and that's very cold for Austin.


Maria's dog Winnie demonstrates her sitting skills while sporting a French inspired bandana ensemble fresh from the grooomer's.


Nate Biggs clipping a quickdraw on Pee Wee's Big Adventure at the Great Wall on the Greenbelt. This ran about 5 columns wide on the front of the Life & Arts section in the AAS to compliment Pam Leblanc's story about the climbing scene in the greenbelt. Doing the climbs I regularly do with 2 or 3 lenses, a camera body, a flash and a flash transmitter makes them much more challenging. The climbers are a great group of people that were patient and accomodating to Pam and I, thanks!

Texas v Texas A&M

Last week I drove to College Station to meet and photograph Texas A&M basketball player Derrick Roland for the Dallas Morning News. Roland key senior for the Aggies, but unfortunately suffered a horrific injury while playing against Washington in December. He was very well composed and sincere while we shot and had a lot of patience to shoot in multiple locations doing different set ups and positions. We even compared our college sports injuries - me: concussions, torn shoulder ligiments; him: torn shoulder ligiment, broken fibula and tibula, broken patela (high school). After shooting I watched the footage and thought it was remarkable how resilient his character was after a traumatic event like this.


It seems that his career could be over at this point, but he has decided to stick around TAMU for a medical red shirt season and play as a senior next year. He also mentioned coaching wouldn't be a bad thing at some point. I hope things work out for him. You can read the story here.


So this all came full circle when the San Antonio Express-News called that same afternoon asking if I was available Saturday to shoot the game between Tamu and presently No. 1 ranked Texas in Austin. In fact I was getting a coffee still in College Station when they called, odd. The game was very intense and scrappy. Texas didn't play 100% and Tamu came out "punching them in the mouth," according to Texas' Damion James.


I don't routinely shoot a lot of games like this, but really had a great time and was able to really turn all my energy to what was happening on the court to make some snaps. I feel like I shot well and filed quickly. It went into overtime and Texas barely pulled on out the W. You can read the Express-News story here.


Thanks Lisa for emailing me this clip!

End of 2009

As 2009 came to a close I work really picked up. These last few photos came from some of my last assignments of 2009.



Freelance writer Michael Hoinski and I, as well as our significant others Kathy and Maria, went down to Gruene for a Saturday evening with Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis. The top portrait of the couple landed on the cover of the Statesman's 360 weekly special section and the bottom photo of Robison's very cool merchandise manager Gary sharing a dance with a stranger ran inside the special section. I think they ran 7 photos from the shoot!


This group of women formed a cabaret group called Carousel and gets hired to dance at various events and performs shows around Austin. It got the crowd moving at the Movember Gala, a mustache party to raise awareness about men's health issues.



The Euless Trinity football team won the 5a state championship defeating my high school rival Westlake in San Antonio. The game went into overtime and was decided by a lob pass to the corner of the end zone. The Morning News ran the catch photo inside pretty large. However, I had a great time shooting the Haka dance they performed before/after the game. The dance is similar to that of the New Zealand All Blacks if you watch rugby and was lead by the Tongans that make up about a third of the team. I found it interesting to see a large immigrant group unite with Texans on the football field to win State.


Stay posted for more posts as more photos are on the way.