Here a few of my favorite shots from a recent shoot with local author Steven James Huhn We shot these at the Oaks Castle here in Johnson City. These are for his new website that will be launching in the fall along with the release of his new book “Sailing Between the Stars.” Thanks to Eric McCarty at the Light Photography for letting me use his awesome wide angle lenses. Eric is a good friend and has been a great mentor to me.

“Don’t Mess With Texas” - a phrase I have heard many times before, but never really thought much about. I always thought it meant that Texas was bigger and better than everywhere else. After spending this weekend in Dallas for a shoot with Dr. Frank Minirth about his book “A Brilliant Mind” I found out the phrase should really be “Don’t Bother With Texas”. Now let me explain that I know that my, not so favorable experience in Dallas is not representative of the whole state or any of the state for that matter, but here are my list of reasons why not to bother with visiting the big state of Texas.

1.) 105 Degrees in the shade (I guess I’ll take a dip in the pool at the hotel)

2.) Mirky brownish green Amazon water in the hotel pool (I guess I’ll go back to my hotel room and surf the web)

3.) Hotel has no wifi or any internet connectivity at all (I guess I’ll just start editing the video that I shot)

4.) 45 minutes later. Ooops I forgot my power adapter for my laptop at home (I guess I’ll go to the Mac store in downtown Dallas to buy a power adapter)

5.) Friday 5:30 PM traffic in downtown Dallas on the way to the Mac store

6.) $79.00 for a new power adapter (I have 2 at home already, so I ask if I can be cheap and just plug my laptop into a power supply for a couple of hours and get some work done.

Highlight of my time in Dallas….spending 3 hours in the Mac store hanging out at the genius bar with other geeks while editing the Dr. Minirth video.

Day 2 started bright and early Sat. at 8:00AM. Starting that early on a weekend requires food without question, luckily we were shooting at a local BBQ restaurant. No we didn’t eat BBQ for breakfast but I was up for anything. Here are more shots from day 2. The last image is a sneak peek at a promotional piece that will be used for the project. Curious yet what this is all about?

Today was awesome. It was a nice summer day - not too humid, perfect day to be outside which I was. What made it even better was I finally got to use my new camera (Sony HDR-FX1 for any tech geeks out there reading) for the first time. I was shooting for a major summer promo project for the WELL college ministry which is a weekly gathering of about 700 college students.

I can’t say much about it right now because it is under pretty tight wrap, but it is going to be pretty crazy. Mike the director took some pictures from the days shoot below. Great first day of shooting Todd, Mike and Julia!