It wasn’t Mr. Toads, but the last few days have been a journey for me, including the 768 miles I drove between Thursday and Sunday. The week started off with some new gear. I stepped up from battery powered strobes to an Alien Bee 800 with a 47 inch Octabox. For those who read this who have no idea what that last sentence means, I now have the sun in my bag. And yes, I did have to get a bigger bag.
Thursday, Headed out to Houston. Scouted the location of my Friday Corporate shoot in downtown. 16th floor conference room that looks out to the former Enron building. Well, it is still a building, just used to house Enron. Wrapped up the scouting, and proceeded to a Mother-Daughter head shot shoot. Had a wonderful time with Natalie, the actress, and Beverly, the corporate speaker. Beverly is from Alice and her family and my family were in a similar line of business back in the day, mainly oil fields and construction.
After the requirements of the shoot were done, we headed outside for a few Mother-Daughter moments.
Thursday night, Bari (friend from wayback), her few month old Max and I went for tacos at 100% Taco. Great little restaurant setup like a street vendor in Mexico. Even had the green taxi in the center.
Friday Morning, Downtown Houston. Corporate shoot for Enite Consulting, Thanks to Neal Hamil Agency for providing our clients and the awesome front desk help of Ashley and Brandon who made our time a breeze. Ashely is in film school, and Brandon does graphic design. Further proof of the creative mind looking to break out from behind the front desk. Another former Seguinite, Andrew, helped me with setup, grunt work, and detail picture taking. Thanks Andrew!
The shoot went great, lots of fun headshots/team shots/stocky shots. Can’t post em yet until the client is happy with them, but they will probably be their own post later.
Lunch with Andrew followed at The Hobbit? down by Rice U. Good blue cheese burger, The raspberry tea? not so much. Best part of the lunch. Guy in table next to us talking to three medical clients, “Don’t ever go into trading lumber futures, you can lose a lot of money in it” ….. What?!, I don’t even know where to begin on that one.
Friday evening, headed back to Austin in the rain. Dropped off the borrowed Vagabond power pack back to Jake North Photography (mine is on backorder), thanks Jake! Friday night was filled with backing up files, spinning hard drives and charging batteries. The glamorous life we lead 🙂
Saturday morning up early to shoot the Muddy Buddy Austin race for brightroom in Johnson City. I was the photographer in the “pit”, 40 foot mud pit that the racing teams finished in. After 10 minutes of wearing sandals, it became a barefoot day in the mud. Great race, terrible parking, copious amounts of mud flying. (in my ear, on my beard, on top of hat, etc.) After I had cleaned up a little, enough to get into the wifey’s car, I helped a fellow photog get her car unstuck. Did I say cleaned up? I meant, splattered with mud from head to toe. Melissa, I am waiting for that six-pack….
Drove to Luling to grab some City Market hot links, then off to my mom’s in Seguin for a power nap. Saturday Night, my assistant Kaush and I tackled the wedding of Zac and Emily in downtown Seguin under the gazebo at Central Park. Following a horse drawn carriage ride to the reception area, Emily and Zac partied in the Coliseum of Seguin. All of their photos will be on my zenfolio site here
Drive back to Austin late, recharge batteries, dump files, backup files, catch a few hours sleep. Up again Sunday morning at 5am, picked up Tenille, my favorite Canadian Pro Triathlete, and headed out to Pace Bend Park for the last of the 2010 Rogue Trail Series, The BEND. Interesting course, in that the 10k and 30k racers finished in different directions. Gabe, the trail master, was trying to challenge me I know. Thanks to Minh for bringing me a breakfast beer up to my perch on the 30k course. The sprinkles came shortly after that, had to engineer cover for my flashes, and used a shoot thru umbrella as an actual, yknow, umbrella. Haha.
Finished up Sunday with another power nap, and then a Maternity shoot with my running buddy JP and his wife Vikki. Vikki’s daughter learned how to ride a bike that morning, so we got some snaps of that as well. Pretty powerful to be a part of both of those experiences, the expectation of a new child, and seeing another child hit a great milestone in their life. I have the best job.
To me, the journey of the last week encapsulated what I love so much about the photography business. Meeting new people, reconnecting with old friends for new purposes, challenging one self creatively, jumping into situations that make me feel a little uncomfortable – but surviving, and seeing joy in others as they pass into new life accomplishments.
Stay Thirsty My Friends, and enjoy the Wild Ride of your Lives!
Josh loves a good adventure and some of his favorite wedding and engagement shoots have involved “getting crazy” or going somewhere special to the couple.
Josh is a Texas native and long time Pflugerville resident. He started his photography business in 2009 and has never looked back. His photo business even allowed him to be daddy-day-care before his two sons reached school age. Over the years his business has expanded to include just about every type of photography including automotive, editorial portraits, corporate events, sports and food. Through it all, he has continued to love wedding photography for genuine moment, the fast pace and the diversity of subjects it offers. Josh is a co-founder of North Austin Pfoutographic Society and a resident instructor at Precision Camera & Video in Austin, Tx.