This post is a bit out of order, but ya know what? I'm just happy to keep this Project 365 train going even if these images are from a week ago. I meant to post them last week anyway, so that's close enough in my book. Kylie finally decided to kick her contacts and glasses to the curb and get Lasik last week. I got to watch the whole thing. Pretty cool stuff, but I kept thinkin' the whole time, Who was the poor guy that had to guinea pig this surgery before they finally got it right? What's his life like these days? I have a morbid curiosity when it comes to things like surgeries. I am mysteriously inquisitive about seeing otherwise painful things happening in a controlled, pain free environment. I dunno... I don't get it. That's just the way it is. In any case, I look better since the surgery, so I'd say it was a success.

Yesterday we celebrated the resurrection of Christ by having a few people over for an Easter meal. Good food and great friends to celebrate this wonderful day. Tiger fell a little short in his bid to make an almost expected amazing come from behind win at the Masters, but other than that, it was a perfect day. I'm still stuffed from al the grazing. Our third version of this table (and hopefully the last) got delivered on Friday morning, so Kylie dec'd it out with a little festive makeover for dinner.

Our honored guests for the day included [top left photo, left to right] my mom who is in town form California, friends (and fellow newlyweds) Ray & Hannah, the Mrs. & I, Kylie's boss Jamie, and our friend Michael. Thanks for making it a special day, guys!

I've been looking forward to this shoot since the day I asked Kylie to marry me. Photographing brides is one of my favorite things to do, and since this session would be with my favorite girl, how much more favoriter could it get? I know it sounds corny, but I do feel blessed every day to share my life with Kylie... she is beautiful in every way. I definitely married up. I'm excited to be making this journey through life with her... to be her best friend, her partner in crime, her supporter, her fan, her confidant... her husband. I love you, sweetie. It was kinda funny to photograph my wife in a bridal session, though... more often than not when I'd start to tell Kylie to turn her head this way or lean that way, she'd be like, I know, I know... I know what you want me to do, just gimme a second... it's hard to move in this dress. Hahaha... she's on to my tricks and needed very little coaching. We went down to Highland Park United Methodist Church near the SMU campus in Dallas Friday afternoon, and my friend Tina came along to photograph Kylie as well. HPUMC was some amazing architecture and makes for a great backdrop for bridal photos. We had an awesome time until the Good Friday service got out just after 8pm and a stampede of people signaled the end of our session there. Here's a few of my favorites of my favorite girl.

I. Love. This. Image.

I really wanted to get a "field shot", and on the way home we were racing against the clock to find a spot with an uncluttered view of the sky (not an easy thing to do in the urban sprawl of Dallas) before the amazing sky we had went dark. We jumped the curve on the service road of the George Bush turnpike and jumped out of the car ran into the field and caught these last two images literally in about 4 minutes. It was a little darker than I wanted by the time we started, but I still love the dramatic feel of these last two. For any photographer types reading this, Tina was holding an SB-800 flash + 20" softbox off camera to Kylie's right that I fired with PocketWizard wireless transceivers.

As Kylie mentioned, the only bad part about this day was there was no plane ride to Italy the next day... unlike the last time she wore this dress.

Every day I never feel like I have enough time to get everything done. I'm always running out of time or at least right down to the wire. SO when I got home today and felt like doing a little quick creative exercise with the camera, this one was just to easy to pass up. I walked into the kitchen and saw this timer and a flickering lightbulb appeared in the thought cloud above my head. I wouldn't call it a brainstorm - more like a light drizzle - but I thought it would be fun to put a few minutes on the clock and see how many different interesting images I could take of this icon that symbolizes the society we live in. I ended up with a fair amount of images I was happy with in terms of variety and interesting compositions, but it'd be a bit overkill to show all of them in one blog post. It is just a timer after all. But here are a couple of my favorites. I used a couple of my very-soon-to-be-released textures from my Firenze Texture Collection that should be available for purchase sometime this weekend on the blog.

With his football-sewn belly, teethy grin, half-weasel half-pooch looking body, I'm not even sure what this little guy is supposed to be. Whatever it is, though, he's been proverbially kicked to the curb after suffering a blow-out on his bottom side after a short stint as a tug-o-war tool for Mia. She loved making him (I'm assuming it's a him) squeak and chewing his guts out during play time. I'd say this guy looks pretty happy to be getting away from the dog.