Today Altus, my good friend from Japan, came into Austin with his family. They crashed at my place and it gave us a chance to go out and do some shooting… I feel lucky to be able to go out and shoot with another great HDR photographer! I can add him to the collection! Here are some other greats I have shot with… and I’ll be sure to add Altus to the list soon.

After we went to a secret spot, we ended up at The Oasis on Lake Travis. Here is a shot of Altus leaning over one of the decks to get a shot using his famous fisheye. And here is one of his shots of his hometown of Tokyo.

I don’t think I realized a big difference in clothes and seasons for little girls until I had one of my own. Every single outfit choice is as dramatic as the final night of American Idol. The histrionics that ensue is the selection of shoes could be stage play of epic proportions. But, once the outfit is complete, then it’s time for summer.

Now, some of you may notice (and have noticed) that I am experimenting with new ads on the site. I will leave them up for 24 more hours and see what your feedback is like. If you find them very annoying, I’ll take them down. Feel free to give me frank comments down here below. The site gets between 300K and 350K visitors per month, and the only ad hitherto has been the banner on the right for B&H Photo, who sponsor the site. So, anyway, I value your regular readership, and I have no wish to annoy you! Lemme know… thanks!

This spot is about 5 minutes from my house.  Why don’t I go up here every night for sunset?  I don’t know.  I really don’t have a good excuse, because every time I go up there, I come away with something different.

On this night, I walked up there with my son right after the sun dropped below the horizon and we watched the day turn to night together.  One of the planets was brightly lit (Venus?) and appeared right above that cool-lookin tree that sits atop.  People from Austin know the one I’m talkin’ about. 🙂

A Texas sunset settled on the farm as we patiently waited for the sky to repaint itself every few minutes.

It was a very relaxing hour, watching the sun slowly descend through the clouds, interrupted on occasion by a stressful swapping of lenses.  I hate to get dust in the chamber, so the changing of lenses is always a high-anxiety event!  But the anxiety faded away pretty quick as we started watching the sunset again.

My friend Leslie had invited me out to her parent’s farm near Brady.  She’s an actress, a model, a photographer, and a bunch of other creative things…  so I had told her I would spend equal amounts of time shooting the farm, her animals, and her. It’s the old 33/33/33 rule of farm-shooting.    Anyway, I am sure some of you would rather see photos of her…  and still others of her animals…  but I can’t make everyone happy at once, so you’ll just have to wait a few weeks for me to sprinkle those in!  Until then, I hope you enjoy the sunset.

South by Southwest is a huge music, film, and interactive festival down here in Austin. People from all over the world come here to what has become known as the music capitol of the world. Many streets shut down for all kinds of interesting activity. I went out an evening ago to get some shots of some of the action on the streets to share with you all. I usually don’t do these sorts of shots, but I wanted to mix it up a little so you could see a local slice of life right here in my hometown! 🙂

SXSW is a big deal down here in Austin! I missed the first few days in Chicago, and when I arrived back I see it was just as crazy as I expected. Our studio is right on 6th street, which has been pretty much a nonstop party for the past week. Of all the various locales where the top bands play, this is one of the better-known ones. It’s called Emo’s, and a closeup of the little sign there (might need to zoom on flickr to original size?) will show a special rule for the elite musician class of Austin who might be surprised to know they get their own sweet set of traffic laws.

Daily Photo: Another Sunset in Austin

I think many people in Austin know this place!

There is a cliff wall that can be traversed up the side on an easy trail that overlooks the 360 bridge. It’s always a beautiful place to come see the sunset over the Colorado. I walked up here a few nights ago when I had the feeling that a good sunset was coming (it’s in my bones now). There’s also this oddly-shaped tree up there all by its lonesome, and I felt like it should be included too.

The is the famous Broken Spoke in Austin. It’s hosted some of country music’s best and they are widely seen as the “last of the true Texas dancehalls”. I have a friend here in Austin that recommended I run around and shoot some of these places, and try to grab them with a certain style. So this is really the first in an upcoming series that will probably take me many months to finish.

There is also this ancient looking bus out front that I snapped at dusk… I hope to get that processed in the near future too!

The locals from the nearby settlements don’t like to call it a ghost town, but I hardly know what else to called the damned place.

I have a variety of photos from this eerie locale.  It turns out it was a failed development between Houston and Austin that is slowly crumbling into the ground.  There seemed to be a few Madmaxesque squatters in the distance muttering about, but they seemed kinda scary so I kept my distance.  Maybe it all felt a bit extra eerie because of the inclement weather as night fell.  I put on appropriately moody music on my iPod as I drifted around like a ghost to snap some photos.

I also added a new section here called “Things I’ve Found That Inspire Me“.  If you didn’t think I was weird before, you will after you see this page.  Sorry if some things on there are kinda strange… I don’t know how or where I found all these things, but I collect them like a digital antique shop.  It occurred to me on a whim that you guys might enjoy taking a gander at my bizarre menagerie.

Hey everyone knows that models that we see in magazines and the like get a little bit of touch up.  That’s no shocker…

A few days ago I was invited to this exclusive party full of models and photographers.  I was picturing a scene like in that episode of Seinfeld when George Costanza went to that secret party.  Well it was nothing like that.

It started with a little road trip with some photographer friends… and, well… more after the link… but we ended up talking a lot about Portraiture.  I decided to give it a whirl, and so I whipped up a little Portraiture Review for you.  I think it’s great, and I am shocked it took me so long to give it a run.

In the review, you can read more about the process and the software. You can also see the original photo, since people always seem to see the “Before” and “After” of these portrait shots! And, if you like modeling kinda shots, I have them mixed in this set here on Flickr, some of which are the product of my Textures Tutorial.