Ledge Stone

Sunset off the back deck at Ledge Stone, yesterday.

StarCite

Here’s a shot we did at the Fosforus studios yesterday for a project we’re working on for StarCite.

Heiferdite found alive and well

If you’re wondering what happened to Heiferdite, the friendly, fit, female bovine creation of Goddess Fit there on Burnet Road, we’ve found her.  She’s still fit, fun and happy, but she now grazes the fertile pastures of Johnson Ranch near Bulverde, deep in the Texas Hill Country.

2010 Texas State Fair

Fosforus is in the planning stages of next year’s food craze for the Texas State Fair, and I believe we’ve got a finalist here with “wearable food,” for those of you who have had enough fried this-and-that.  Recipes vary, but this particular one here is a cheese-baked ciabatta roll, buttered on the inside for easy slip-on.  Special thanks to hand model Will Wade.

Johnson Ranch

Just returned from the initial shoot down at Johnson Ranch near Bulverde, a beautiful working cattle ranch (Herefords) that’s being developed into residential and retail by DH Investment Company, the folks behind Southern Trace, Cordillera Ranch and Ledgestone.

Congratulations to The Shady Grove!

I never even knew this was a contest, but evidently, at The Shady Grove down there on Barton Springs Road, you can sit in (and tweet from) the first ever “Tweet Seat Champion Chair.” Evidently, Twitter’s GPS functionality can identify from exactly where the most tweets have been sent, and to think our own little Shady Grove is such a hotspot for the twitterazzi, having broadcast over 71 million tweets in 2009 alone.  Congratulations, Shady Grove, and thanks to Twitter’s media people for the use of this shot.

Thoughts on equipment

Professional photographers would never shoot with a D80, yet I did for about a year and made some significant revenue with it.  It’s now the camera I take on vacation and to kids’ parties and such.  I shot this one with my old D80, a cheap Tamron zoom lens attached, through a commercial airliner window, behind the wing, through the thrust of the engine.  So the next time the asshole at the camera store starts telling you about image quality, restrain the urge to thank him with your middle finger.

LUV

Southwest knew what it was doing when it selected its ticker symbol.  I’m sure it was because of its home base there in Dallas at Love Field, but I luv that company.  Strange that they seem to be able to operate so well, so safely, so happily and so profitably when others cannot.  People sure bitch about Southwest, and I think there was even a TV show based on travelers’ complaints, but if there’s a choice, I fly Southwest every time.  This here’s a shot of them bringing me back from Vegas, with money in my pocket and no hangover.  The three guys behind me who were celebrating a buddy’s return from Iraq?  Not sure if they had any money left, but they were not feeling so well.

Name that pool

Monumental

My six year old lost his first pet today.  A fish he originally named “Repto-Slicer” but later renamed as “Chip.”  Personally, I thought Repto-Slicer was a better name, but Chip seemed to stick in his later days.  Chip died while his owner was at school today, and I buried him in the back yard.  When he got home, Chip’s owner and his little sister made a headstone and complete shrine around Chip’s grave, complete with a popsicle stick cross and some toys and leaves and a fake pumpkin because it’s almost Halloween.  The genuine sincerity and sadness of it all was very poignant.

Front yard envy

So just down the road from where I shot ol’ Larry Trader lies another piece of landscape artistry from Dylan Robertson and his team at D-Crain.  I still haven’t been able to get my brain around what I like about their work, at least in terms of a tangible explanation, but I love what they do to a canvas of dirt.  I shot this home last year, before all the plants were in the ground, and there was a real power to the stark beauty of it.  Now I love it even more.  The textures, the encroachments, the colors, and the hard edges of the hardscapes combined with the ethereal flow of the grasses and the plush zoysiagrass lawn.

Good morning from Austin

Be my focus group…please

Just got back from a weekend shoot at Cordillera Ranch.  They opened their new clubhouse, which is, in keeping stride with the way they do things out there, BAD ASS.  One of the above shots will make the cover of Cordillera Ranch Living, and while the final pick will be up to the editors and art directors, I ask you:  Which one do you like best?

Another day in Austin, Texas

Better Than Ezra

This shot here shows what kind of concert-goer I am.  My old pals from Better Than Ezra were in town for a show at La Zona Rosa last night, and all I could manage was a stop in at the 4:00pm soundcheck and dinner with them at Ranch 616.  Hell, their show started at 11:00pm, and while I’m sure there were plenty of drunk happy Longhorns and drunk pissed Red Raiders there, I’d been asleep for two hours when they cranked up.  Big thanks to Kevin, Jim, Tom, Michael and Brian for the beer on the bus.  Next stop for them:  El Paso, Albuquerque and on out to the West Coast.  A little-known fact I learned last night:  BTE frontman Kevin Griffin writes all their songs and is a very, very talented songwriter.  He wrote this.