Category Archives: Portraits

Week 44 – Spooky stuff

A motley assortment of folks gather for halloween festivities.

Got to go to a halloween party this past Saturday! It’s tricky taking pictures when you’re staying in character as a young boy going on adventures, but I managed. It was fun. There were Nightmares before Christmas.

Week 34 – Ready for Blast-off

Shawna will be an awesome first-year teacher of either first grade or kindergarten at Deretchin in a week.

Shawna is all ready to go and be a real grown-up with her teaching job! At this point, we’re still not 100% sure which grade she’ll be teaching, but no matter which one, I’m sure she’ll do fantastic. I’d like to watch her teach kids in the classroom, but we’re pretty sure that’s illegal or something. In any case, you can see the theme– the world and exploration!

I threw together a weird setup for this photo. I had the flash on-camera (my off-camera trigger is broken) and I pointed at the ceiling, but put a big piece of cardboard in between Shawna and the flash so no light would hit her directly from it. I’m not sure if it really had any effect.

Week 14 – Spring Flowers

Shawna admires bluebonnets at Spring Forest park.

It was a nice day, and all sorts of flowers are growing now, so Shawna and I figured we’d go get some pictures of the bluebonnets we’d heard about. They smelled good.

I tried some artsy photos.

I also tried some silly ones.

But for this week’s “Official Photo,” a plain ole portrait worked. I used the fill flash on that one, but I’m not sure it showed. It was glaringly bright, so there were going to be shadows no matter what. Still, not many ways to mess up a picture of a girl sitting in some flowers.

Week 11 – Aiming for the sky


Stephen works on one of the boosters for a gigantic LEGO space shuttle.

It’s true, two LEGO photos in a row. I’ve been having trouble finding new and exciting things to take photos of, and it’s difficult to keep my camera with me at all times. But I will continue to try to keep this thing going! Maybe folks can give me opinions on what I should try to shoot this next week?

On the side, even though the subject matter is old, I do like this shot.

Week 6 – Low Light

Colin talks to Stephen at Sweet Eugene's, a coffee shop in College Station, TX.

The coffee shop where I took this photo was very dark, which was ok, because I happened to be carrying around my 50mm 1.8 lens. I shot Colin a couple times before I decided to edge Stephen’s profile into the frame, and I like how it turned out. Maybe other people don’t. But I feel this is one of the more interesting and well-composed shots I’ve done so far this year.

Week 4 – Chili Night

Nathan Lewis pours some chili into a cup. He was a judge for the chili contest that the Young Singles / Crossties held.

I sort of / kind of shot an event this last week. My sunday school class of “young singles” had a chili night with the older folks at our church– the 55+ crowd. It was a lot of fun. I didn’t get any great standout shots, though. I guess I’m kind of pleased with this one, but I feel I could have made it more interesting somehow.  I’m also not sure that having the focal point on the ladle instead of his face was wise, but it was a quick decision to make.

Week 3 – Phantom Pete

Stephen sits at Baker Street Pub at The Woodlands Waterway.

I shot this one on a whim while eating dinner, and it turned out pretty nice.  The 1.8 prime helped out in that respect.
I’m always hesitant about making photos black and white, simply because I feel that a lot of the time people use it as a crutch. And it may be one for me here. But I like this more than the colo(u)r version.

I shot this one on a whim while eating dinner, and it turned out pretty nice.  The 1.8 prime helped out in that respect.I’m always hesitant about making photos black and white, simply because I feel that a lot of the time people use it as a crutch. And it may be one for me here. But I like this more than the colo(u)r version.

Week 2 – Flowers

Shawna matches.

Shawna's new umbrella goes with her shirt, which goes for a photo.

For my first photo that I actually took in 2012, an image of Shawna. I wish that I would have exposed it better (I had to fix a lot in RAW, and the glasses reflections kill me) but I liked the fact that her shirt was as flowery as her newly-gotten umbrella (parasol?).

I was planning to shoot some fun restaurants in downtown Houston this week, but perhaps they will show up on this blog at another point.