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For our loyal blog readers (yes, plural thank you very much) yall know that we love to do things a bit different. Yesterday’s family creative portrait session was no different. The basic concept is that our darling youngest daughter is basically a Suri Cruise level diva and needs constant “bodyguarding” by her two bodyguards, also her twin older sisters. She is staying at a posh hotel downtown and is about to go tantrum/trash-the-place/why-are-there-brown-m&m’s-don’t-you-know-who-I-am style meltdown. Also, juice box.
The last photo was fun to create as well. We took our underwater housing and flashes to the splash pad at Butler Park and chased the girls as they ran through the water. We got more than a few strange looks!
This is the type of family portrait that goes through my head, my imagination tends to run a bit wild. If you have an overactive imagination then please give us a call immediately to schedule your session and we can make something larger than life happen!
Jun 17, 2013 | Categories: Creative, Family Portraits | Tags: bodyguard, condo, diva, downton, fashion light, high rise, suri cruise | Leave A Comment »
Pamuk and Tom play chess. Tom doesn’t know what he is doing.
I have crazy friends and I love them. My friend Amie has been planting this Downton Abbey shoot in my ear for a while now and we finally had the chance to make it happen. For those that don’t know, Downton Abbey is a period drama set in England around the time of World War I in an estate with upper class and lower class characters. Our goal was to play up some of that class warfare and show the Crawley Sisters doing their thing. Amie found the perfect venue in Austin at the Scottish Rite Dormitory and got us access to all kinds of fun rooms, libraries, boiler rooms and grand ballrooms. As a former UT student I had only been in the lobby of the dorm (it’s all girl) so it was fun to poke around this historic venue. Honestly, it took me about an hour of scouting to soak in all the nooks and crannies available to us.
Let me give a shout out quickly to my rockstar Hair and Makeup Gal Crystal Glass. She makes everyone look awesome no matter the style we through at her, and if you follow this blog you have seen some of our craziness.
Returning to Amie, wow, she did so much work to make this shoot happen. Period Costumes, Venue Access, Beef Jerky for the photographer (always recommended!), finding the cast, and starring as Mary!, busy day for Amie indeed. My work was easy, I just pushed the shutter button.
We also setup a Rolleiflex portrait session with our led litepanel, but those will have to wait until we can get our 120 film developed and scanned. Excited to see what those 2 rolls of film holds.
Thanks to everyone that helped out on this shoot, we love showing what we can do creatively.
Pamuk is restless for something to happen
The Crawley Sisters
Edith in the library, no one pays her any attention
A proposal
Tom finding a helpful book on chess
Oh no! A dead body must be hidden!
Jun 15, 2013 | Categories: Creative | Tags: downton abbey, pamuk, srd, style shoot | Leave A Comment »
We were honored with the opportunity to photograph our third style shoot for Bliss Bridal Magazine. We took this chance to go big in our ambition, and have our couple go underwater for the lead image! The team at 11-11 Events styled this shoot and took care of everything. That let the photography team get on with the work of photographing, tweaking lights and scuba diving in the awesome pool at Taylor Mansion. I can’t stress enough how much better photoshoots (including real weddings) go when you have brains at the top in an excellent event planner putting everything in place at the right time. The gals at 11-11 Events found the vendors, found the venue, and styled the hell out of the look with cool little touches everywhere we looked.
Some of my favorite creative touches were the literal tying of the knot, get it? The groom’s Sperry Top-Siders contrasted against the wedding dress is a fun image as well. The floral team did a super cool job between the floating pomanders weighted and secured at the bottom of the pool to the correlated suspended center table roses in the large vase. The message in a bottle well wish at the guest table! Can’t wait for someone to do this at a wedding, just a great idea. And finally, the food! The pastries and the oyster bake, I think we all gained 5 pounds on this shoot with all the cake toppers and cupcakes. Delicious and fun in completing our nautical theme.
I will take a quick moment to thank all of the vendors for trusting 11-11 Events and AzulOx Photography in our vision for how the shoot should go. Lots of vendors would run away when the words cocktails tables submerged in water get uttered but everyone came through like a champ and the pictures reflect the courage of all of the vendors in trying something out of the norm. Here is the list of the vendors for you to get in contact with them:
Event Planning: 11-11 Events
Rentals/Furniture: Illusions Rentals & Design
Floral: Casa Linda Floral
Venue: Taylor Mansion
Pastries: Envy Pastries
Cupcakes: Pamcakes
Hair & Makeup: All Dolled Up
Catering: Rosemary’s Catering
Bride: Camryn Little
Groom: Ryan Kiel
Video: Austin McGrew with AzulOx
Audio: Kelsey Noelle with AzulOx
Assistant: Meredith Surrey
Thanks again to everyone who helped out on this photographic endeavour. I hope yall like the direction we are taking with our styled shoots. Which ones are yalls favorite?
–JB
Jun 13, 2013 | Categories: Weddings | Tags: 11-11 events, bliss bridal magazine, clambake, cupcakes, illusions, nautical, pomander, scuba, style shoot, taylor mansion, underwater | Leave A Comment »
It’s going to be the summer of Nautical Themed weddings! We had the great opportunity to photograph a pair of my childhood friends getting married in the spot where they share their time together fishing and enjoying each others company, Surfside, Texas. My wife and I attended and spent the weekend taking pictues, hanging out on the beach and reconnecting with friends from different stages in our lives. Kelly and I had 2nd grade homeroom together and Nate the groom took my wife to HS Senior Prom! It was because of all of these connections that this wedding was so fun to photograph.
The day started with the gals getting done up by Desirae and Crystal and ended with a glow in the dark beach run to the getaway truck. And it between there was a long kiss, a few I do’s and lots of dancing to the John Evans Band.
Thanks to all who made this day a success and best wishes to Kelly and Nate!
May 22, 2013 | Categories: Weddings | Tags: beach, gulf coast, nautical, sunset, surfside, texas, wedding | 3 Comments »
Our friends over at Hops & Grain Brewery commissioned us to do a set of portraits of themselves and their canine companions. The dogs Suzy and Zoe have their own beers, well, named after them, not in their water bowl or anything. The Pale Dog is named for Suzy and The One they Call Zoe is for Zoe. Now I just have to make the pictures so good in hopes that I get a seasonal beer, maybe the Black and White instead of a Black and Tan? I think that has a certain ring to it. Combine a porter and an homage to Celis White, the photographers black and white. Sorry, as well as a photo geek I am also a beer nerd. Yall need to go visit the tap room on Friday or Saturday to see what Josh and Meg are cooking up in the Green Room. And support local business by buying a sixer of Zoe at your HEB!
–JB
May 20, 2013 | Categories: Portraits | Tags: beer, dog, hops & grain, portraits, suzy, zoe | Leave A Comment »
In true Pflugerville fashion we met Nick because his mother and my wife teach together. Love living in our small town with big city access. Anyhow our session was intended to just be casual photos around Old Settlers Park in Round Rock. Nick is a pretty chill guy so we played this loose and laconic. While talking during the first setup it came out that he also longboarded, and yes, do you have it with you? No, but his dad wasn’t faraway. In the meantime don’t joke about hanging from a tree or we will call your bluff!
Once the longboard arrived, Nick changed to the laid back outfit and we tried to capture the feel and vibe of longboarding. We had decent light and played with action, slow shutters and fisheyes all in the parking lot of the Dell Diamond. I knew I also wanted some different looks so we pulled out the lensbaby for the black and white where we blurred out the leading lines. And then the final image was my favorite of the day! Setting sun and a very gridded parabolic reflector from way above for the dramatic look.
You just never know the direction a session will take and we try to be ready for the ebbs and flows. The flow of the longboard led to the last image and I bet it is your favorite right?
–JB
May 15, 2013 | Categories: Senior Portraits | Tags: dramatic, old settlers park, senior portraits, skateboarding | Leave A Comment »
Danielle will soon be graduating from Seguin High School and making the trek an hour north to attend the University of Texas. I say good choices all around, since that is exactly what I did. This session was a bit of whirlwind. We got through six locations/six light setups in about 2 hours plus a brief posing primer at the beginning of the session. We would have done more but Danielle’s sister Tiffany wouldn’t share any of her delicious goldfish crackers so we ran out of energy. Our theme for the shoot was “nothing normal” (which is most of my shoots!) so we used ring flashes, hard lights, soft lights, direct sun and a shady ambient. The differing lights showed off the different aspects of Danielle’s personality but didn’t show her tattoo! (Have to ask her mom about that).
Tell Danielle which is your favorite in the comments and start her summer off right.
–JB
May 14, 2013 | Categories: Senior Portraits | Tags: cheerleader, downtown, hidden patio, hookem, red brick, seguin, senior portraits, walnut springs, zdt | Leave A Comment »
Looks and Love. Megan and Shepherd are a couple who Look at each other and you can feel the Love they have to each other, how no matter the storms surrounding them they are their own island of happiness together.
The wedding itself took place at Vintage Villas in Austin, Texas on a day that was tempting to become a storm but like their love for each the storm clouds receded and the weather and day turned magnificent. Music and Dance filled the day from the harpist to the mano a mano dance off’s in this crowd of professional dancers. The music played and their bodies told the stories of the songs. Was something like photographing an music video with all the pops and locks the cool kids were doing. Shepherd even surprised his new bride with a musical serenade, that took courage!
Lots of fun touches on the night but my favorite was the sugar rush of a candy buffet they had during the reception. We felt that was a fun place to take a photograph of the wedding bands against the candied backdrop.
We even ended the night with one of our sparkler lit scenes seen in the photo above. And yes we did this in one shot. Mainly because that is all the sparklers we had left.
Congratulations to Shepherd and Megan, may all of your days be filled with Dancing, Music, Love and the Looks you give each other.
Full Wedding Galleries
May 09, 2013 | Categories: Weddings | Tags: austin, candy rings, dancers, dancing, photography, serenade, texas, vintage villas, wedding | Leave A Comment »
We just wrapped up a creative session for a local Austin Author, Jennifer Hritz (website), to produce media for her upcoming novel, “The Crossing”. The experience was a bit surreal on a day when Austin set an 84 year old record for cold weather in May. This fit our purposes though because the action in the novel is set on a cool October day. The other surreal aspect is photographing characters from someone else’s head. Usually I am the one writing backstories on the characters in our sets, but not today. Jennifer told me that the characters for this novel had lived in her head for the last twenty years. No pressure in presenting them as she saw them! Austin and I were a bit nervous about that part but we kept our professional cool and made these photos happen.
For the curious, we tried out the new VSCO film pack #2 to provide an emulated emulsion that replicated the type of camera and film that would have been available to the characters. First time using VSCO after hearing about them for the past year. Nice setup and fits my workflow quite nicely. Based on limited use so far, I would already recommend this product to use for the right type of photos.
And yes, I realize these photo’s also could be used for a smoking campaign. Just part of the detail that makes up the characters. Read the books, don’t start smoking. That is your public service announcement for today.
May 03, 2013 | Categories: Creative | Tags: austin, author, creative, jennifer hritz, novel, vsco, zilker | Leave A Comment »
Hmm. Where to start on this session? We had the sweet and sassy section in an old barn with lots of dusts and sun. Then there was the bonfire in a field with a windmill in the background. Or maybe it was how we ended in a gym doing cross fit? Any way you slice it, we had an amazing time making senior portraits with Jillian in Seguin, Texas. Her smile lit up the dusty barn and her box jumps left us amazed. We also have to give her dad some credit in building a bonfire in heavy winds and then tamping it out when the fire spread a bit.
There is still time to get your Senior Portraits done! What aspect of your personality can we show off? And lastly, which one is everyone’s favorite? I have an idea but I will leave the vote up to the public
–JB
May 02, 2013 | Categories: Senior Portraits | Tags: barn, bonfire, Cross fit, Dust, seguin, senior portraits | Leave A Comment »
We specialize in on-location portraiture utilizing natural and additional lighting. Our talents often place us at weddings, in front of high school seniors, with families as they gather, and endurance sporting events.