Zac's Bar Mitzvah

This evening I had the pleasure I photographing Zac's Bar Mitzvah in Dallas at Temple Emanu-El. The ceremony was simply amazing and the party afterward was incredibly fun. Here are the highlights.

The Yamaka

Zac

 The Rabbi and Zac's Grandfather put on his Tallit.

I love his brother's body language as they open the ark where the Torah is kept and my favorite part of the service is where the Bar Mitzvah gets to carry the Torah through the Sanctuary and the congregation touches their prayer books to it. It's so wonderful.

 The Rabbi talks to Zac in front of the Torah.

 Zac ends the Shabbat Service by extinguishing the flame surrounded by his cousins.

 Now for the reception honoring Zac.

 The DJ Todd Payne of Party Time Productions kept the kids dancing and entertained all night long.

 They had a family hula-hoop contest.

 And Zac won the baby rattle competition. His party was a "Minute to Win It" theme and the kids loved it! They were all so competitive.

 Zac's parents even brought in his favorite sno-cone maker Summer Snow Gourmet Shaved Ice for the party.

 Zac and his dad dance after being stuffed with balloons.

 Zac has his caricature drawn by Ben Vincent.

 The Hora! I love this part.

 Zac's brothers got lifted up too.

 At the end of the night everyone moved in for a big group hug. Fun!

 Jaime, Zac and Lori. Mazel tov!

Basketball

Last night I photographed the Midland Lady Dawgs vs The Duncanville Pantherettes in the 5A Regional Semifinals. It was a lot of fun and it was great to see Midland come back and win the game...that always makes for exciting bench photos :)

Kim and Jay are Married!

Last week I was lucky enough to photograph the beautiful wedding of Kim and Jay in Fort Worth. The ceremony was family only and it was sweet and intimate and absolutely lovely. The reception was a bigger crowd and so much fun with the kids running around and dancing and basically having a great time. Here are the highlights.

I love the way she is looking at her dad as she walks him into the ceremony. The kids all had a big part as they walked their parents in and then stood up with them during the ceremony.

 I love how the kids are all peeking around to try to see what's happening. So cute!

 The Kiss!

 A few details.

 Cake! The cake was in front of this amazing mirror where I could focus on the cake top and still see the rest of the cake in the reflection and then when they were cutting the cake they were reflected. I love it. Oh and the cake...superb. Yum!

 Some fun portraits...first the whole family.

 And next...some alone time.

 Finally...the kids had a great time playing with the bouquet. What kid doesn't want to hold a giant ball of flowers? Yes we had fun.

Scrapbooked Recently

I've been motoring through some scrapbook pages since I've had a little downtime.

Here's a page I created from Taylor and Clint's Wedding. I used a new kit by Stacey's Scraps called Always and Forever. I like the textures in her papers so when I use her kits I tend to blend a big photo into the paper for a unique background. 

This is one from last year's Giving Gallery. My students pick their best photos from the year and we mount them and show them off in a gallery space for one evening and hold a silent auction. The "Giving" part of the Gallery is that they donate all the proceeds from the silent auction to charity. It makes me proud to see my students all dressed up and showing off their talents but it makes my heart really smile to see them donate all the money they make :) Love my students! This page is made using a kit called A Day in the Life by Artgal Style.

Finally Vicki released a new kit last Friday called Boys will be Boys. I've had these photos of Gregg and his photographer buddies sitting on my hard drive for almost 2 years, just waiting to be scrapped. I liked the colors in this kit...the green made me think of Key Lime pie and since they went to Key West, well I just went with it. I like how it turned out. Silly like the boys.

I also made a page using the same kit showing of Annie's little bat ears. Love my puppy.

The Clips

Here are the photos of mine that made the Star-Telegram Slideshow.

North Texas Super Bowl

Yesterday I got to check "shooting the Super Bowl" off my bucket list. I've been wanting to shoot the Super Bowl ever since I started shooting sports in college. Finally! I didn't have a field level shooting position, and I couldn't run out on the field after the game to shoot the coaches handshake...we all know how I love that, but it was just cool to be in the building and be a part of a newspaper coverage team again. I was there with the best sports shooters in the world and you know what...I was one of them :)

Here are a few photos from my shooting spot in the upper concourse. Overall it was a pretty good spot on the 50 yard line looking straight down on the action.

The Super Bowl at Cowboys Stadium

A panoramic from high overhead during the pregame.

 Since I was up high I was focusing more on pretty scene shots as opposed to true game action. I like the teams curving around the trophy logo as the MVP quarterback hands off.

 Gotta love the cute kids in the stands :)

 The North Texas 2.6.11 and Super Bowl sign sandwiching the former owner of the Cowboys Name in the ring of honer caught my eye. I wonder what Tex Schramm would have thought about hosting the Super Bowl in North Texas?

 I moved around a bit on the upper concourse and I like this view of the field from the endzone.

 At halftime the stadium was quickly transformed into a concert and it looks like a completely different place. Cool.

 The Black Eyed Peas performed and it was pretty amazing to see them drop out of the giant scoreboard. Their light show was amazing.

 Dancers in lights.

 Usher showed up for a song.

 During the second half I put on the long glass and tried to get some action.

Touchdown Packers.

An almost catch in the endzone.

 An almost touchdown as the player tried to reach across the gaol line as he was knocked out of bounds.

The Steelers QB is stopped on the run.

 A nice celebration shot after the Steelers scored the two-point conversion.

 Pressure on the Packers QB.

 Crunch.

 The Packers bench the moment they won the game!

 Running out on to the field to celebrate with the team.

 They had to go back to the bench for one more play and the coach get dumped with the Gatorade.

Aaron Rogers raises the game ball as he is surrounded by the media.

And me! After the game the security guards were nice enough to let me go on the field for a few minutes to take a photo. I wouldn't have missed this for anything. What's next on my bucket list?

Snow Days = Scrapbooking!

This week has been crazy. The ice storm shut down school for four days. No I don't live in the northeast. I live in TEXAS! Not that I'm complaining about a 4 day vacation form school but it's just not supposed to be like this here :)

Anyway, since I had tons of time on my hands I caught up on lots of scrapbooking. Bonus! I created several digital pages but I also had the time to finish up a lot of traditional cut and paste pages that I had on my plate from before I went all digital. It was kind of nice to get out the trimmer, the corner rounded and the e-xacto knife again. All in all I think I did about 25 pages in three days. Here are the digital ones.

This is a catch-up page from 2009. Yes I am that far behind. When I get a kit I just look through the millions of photos I have taken that haven't been scrapped yet and see if any of them inspire me. I love these photos of my nieces playing in the park and this kit Doodly Doo which is a Scrap That Idea Collab had the perfect colors to go with my photos.

Next is a page about Rachel's Basketball game. It's actually scrapped using a Valentine's Kit called Funky Love but her team color is Pink and the basketball really was that green color so again...perfect kit to scrap with. I had taken the photo of the floor to use as a page background but when I saw this kit I decided to use the pink and integrate the floor as a mat instead.

Last year I got to ride on a fire truck in the Parade of Lights. I'll admit...it was pretty cool. I'm not a 4 year of little boy, but seriously, who doesn't want to ride on a fire truck? The only think that might be better would be to ride on the zamboni ;) I used Vicki's new kit 911 Rescue and a few cutouts from the side of the fire truck to make it fun.

Finally, my wonderful friend Michelle asked me to come photograph her Grandparents 60th anniversary party last weekend. So sweet. The post right before this one is all about their party. I was so inspired by the photos that I had to scrap a page and Artgal Style's Be Mine kit was waiting there in a folder on me desktop for some sweet romantic photos.

 I so love scrapbooking and taking photos :) Memories are all we have.