This past weekend I had a chance to go down to Zion National Park in Utah with 40 guys from my church (Kensington Community Church in Troy, MI.)
It was like a mens retreat with hiking, camping, fellowship, etc. I got to meet a lot of great guys and enjoy the outdoors for a few days.

Zion is located in southwestern Utah and is one of the most impressive national parks in the United States. I’ve been to Zion a few times, but never with a group like this.  On this trip I didn’t take too many photos and instead just enjoyed the scenery and the people I was with.

The rest of our images from the Zion and Bryce region can be found on our website. Here is the direct link:
http://www.arisingimages.com/fineart/00_all/index.html?show=__Utah

Here are a few pictures:
This first one is from Observation Point which is the highest lookout point overlooking the park that you can hike to. Tom Wilson and I hiked up there on Saturday. It was a steep climb that definitely got the heart pumping, but it was well worth it for the views along the way and at the top:

Here is one of the views from the trail up to Observation Point. We got to walk through a really cool slot canyon:

This is just a quick photo showing part of the trails in Zion. The trail on the lower half of the picture is what goes up to Observation Point and the split and then zig zag on the upper half of the photo goes to Hidden Canyon.

This is a pic of our campsite with the moon about to rise over the majestic Watchman peak.

I brought an infrared camera with me and spent some time on Sunday shooting some pics around the valley. This one is down by the river right by the Court of the Patriarchs bus stop:

Here is another one from the same area:

I just wanted to say a quick thanks to the mens group that organized this trip. Planning a trip for 40 guys is no small chore, and they did a fantastic job!!

After shooting Ethan and Sarah’s wedding on Saturday, we headed out for our little road trip. As mentioned in an earlier post, things didn’t go too well between the weather and the closed roads. We ended up coming home last night (Wednesday) instead of Friday night. Mayz was having some trouble sleeping through the night and since we’re not skiers, a lot of the ski towns started to look the same. We did get a few breaks in the weather here and there and got a few fun pictures.

The rest can be viewed on our website here:
Colorado 2008 Photos (View and Order Prints)

This first picture was actually taken at the ranch where Ethan is staying. It was up in the mountains near Golden, CO and the trees were covered in frost…it was spectacular!!

It was extremely windy most of the time we were out there. In this photo, you can see the snow blowing off the trees.

I just loved the angular morning light coming in on this photo:

We found this little church on the side of the road. The morning sun lit up the church, while the storm clouds loomed in the background

This is a photo of part of downtown Central City, CO. It’s an old gold mining town that is now rather sad. Most of the business were closed other than a casino inhabited by lots of old people.

On our last night, we stayed in Breckenridge, CO where the weather was actually pretty good. We found a beautiful hotel up on a hilltop called the Breckenridge Lodge and Spa. This is the view from our room which only cost $89 for the night which is MUCH cheaper than anywhere else in Breckenridge. Apparently they are just about to close for some major renovations but stayed open for a couple more nights due to all the snow (ski resort area), and they were just trying to book up the rooms, so we got a great deal.

Well, I thought it was beautiful outside yesterday with the snow sticking to the trees, but yesterday had nothing on today!! This morning was absolutely spectacular. There was a heavy snowfall last night but the temperatures were not too cold so the snow was thick and wet and clung to the trees everywhere. I went back to the nearby park and spent an hour walking around. It was one of the most spectacular scenes I’ve seen in a long time.
What a great way to start out the new year.
HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!

After I got home, Cheridy and I decided to have a little fun with Mayz. Since this is the first good snow we’ve had since Mayz was born, we decided to go outside and make a snowman and dress Mayz up like one too. Cheridy bought him this snowman outfit but it’s way too big for him, so we had to fill it with bubble wrap to fill it out. I had to do some photoshopping to make the second snowman and have him holding Mayz. I can’t remember the last time we had snow that packed this well. It took all of about 30 seconds to make the giant snowballs for the snowman.
Cheridy and I had a good time but Mayz was asleep for most of it other than a few seconds of protest.

This morning we woke up and there was a beautiful snowfall on the ground. Today was the type of day that EVERY winter day should be like. Snow sticking to the trees while light and powdery on the ground (easy to shovel!!). The temperature was comfortable and there was no wind. It truly was a perfect winter morning so I had to grab my camera and head out to take a few pictures.

Recently Dr. John Pradko and his wife Paige opened up a new building to move their medical practice into. They designed a built a really nice space and then purchased fine art gallery wraps from us to decorate every room. The final results were stunning and it was a real blessing for me to be able to see some of my travel photography printed large and hung in a public space like that. We’ve gotten so busy with the weddings and portraits that we haven’t spent very much time promoting the art itself. Here are just a few of the rooms:

I just returned from my fourth annual east coast road trip. This year I spent some time driving through the small towns in southern Vermont and New Hampshire and then spent an evening hanging out with my old friends (read more in the last post). I then went on down through Boston to the tip of Cape Cod. I past through the insane mansions in Newport Rhode Island and then back through southern Massachusetts before heading home. I found myself NOT shooting a lot of scenes because since this was my 4th fall color trip, a lot of the fall color type scenes felt like “been there, done that” so I was looking for different subjects. Heading through Boston, I was unfortunately there during Friday rush hour on the day of a world series game which was very frustrating to the point where I just kept going and didn’t stop. Then on the Cape, the weather was dark, rainy, windy and just all around gloomy. All in all, I was able to get some good pictures, but many of them ended up being taken in very unlikely places which I guess is part of the adventure.

This weekend was our first weekend in quite some time that we didn’t have a wedding to shoot. We actually only have one wedding left this year, so we’re excited about ramping down before having our baby. We had a chance to go up to the Tice cottage and hang out with them for the weekend. We played some cards, relaxed, talked, and went out on the boat for a little while. Cheridy is not a big fan of the boat due to sea sickness so she stayed back. We did a couple of passes in front of the cottage and she took a couple of photos while we sailed on by.

My friend Ben from Phoenix was in town and came by yesterday. We played a little basketball and then went to the movies to see WAR with Jet Li.
This morning we woke up to some good fog outside so we took our cameras and went to Dodge Park which is half a mile up the road from our house. Unfortunately it was a haven for mosquitos so we literally only stayed for about 5 minutes. I have a few good photos to show for it along with about 30 mosquito bites.

We just returned from our second trip to the Dominican Republic to finish the commercial shoot that we were hired for. If you want to skip the stories and go straight to the slide show, you can do that here:
http://www.arisingimages.com/product/20070415_dominican/slideshow/slideshow.html

This trip was much more planned out and structured and one of the main goals was to photograph activities and people doing those activities. The video production team that we traveled with had a lot of gear and equipment along with a lot of people to help move everything around and set everything up. Their footage was primary and the photos were secondary. The setups of the video equipment took a lot of time so typically each day we just had a one or two areas to travel to and shoot with the purpose of getting very specific shots. We were also working with four actors/models who could pose for the photos/video.

Day 1
The first day we arrived in Santo Domingo and did a few quick shots in the downtown area, however, that wasn’t too important for Cheridy and I because we had already taken a number of shots when we were there last month. We had to go there to Santo Domingo last time to get our new passports after they had been stolen (which you can read about here).

Day 2
The next setup shot was of mountain biking. Maximo is a local mountain biker who led us up to a beautiful place up in the mountains. We spent most of the morning taking some pictures of him and a few others on the mountain bikes.

While up in the mountains we had a chance to enjoy a bit of the local flavor as well.

After that we did some white water rafting photos. The weather was really bad with hard rain so we had to huddle under umbrellas to get the shots we needed. There was nobody on the river so it had to be arranged to have some of the river guides take a raft down the river and make 4-5 passes in front of the cameras. We were travelling with a guy named Mike Braun who used to own multiple adventure sports companies around the world who is now “retired”. He got us connected with the river guides and made sure that we got the shots that we needed.

Day 3
Today Mike Braun took some of us canyoning to get some photos of waterfalls and repelling. This was an unexpectedly long day. I had my cameras and tripod in a dry bag and then repelled down and swam across to a viewpoint where I could setup to get some waterfall photos. However, I then had to sit on a rock for almost two hours waiting for the others to come down with the video camera which was put in an underwater housing. After getting the shots we needed, I was expecting to have the gear hoisted back out and then hike out, but instead, we had to hike through the river, repell down a second waterfall, hike down further and then hike back up to the top. The trip itself would have been fine if I had expected it but since I didn’t expect it, I was not prepared with food/water, or the right shoes for walking on slippery rocks in the water. We were expecting to be in the canyon from about 12:00-2:30 but we didn’t end up making it out until about 6:30 so it was a tiring and frustrating day. I didn’t have an underwater housing for the camera, so I had to keep everything in a doubled up dry-bag which was a real pain to open/close. By the end of the day, I was so tired that the camera never came out.
We had repelled down with Mike who is a canyon guide along with myself and two of the video team. Everyone else stayed at the top and had a long day of sitting and waiting for us.
As I sat on the rock and waited for the rest of the crew, I waited for some periods of shade and was able to get some really nice waterfall photos.

Later, Florian from the video team had to repel down with the 50 lb video camera…he’s an animal!!

Once he was down, Mike and his friend Sol (who is also experienced at adventure sports) allowed us to take some shots of them as they repelled down through the waterfall and then jumped into the pool below.

Day 4
This was the first day that we had to work with the actors. We had to get up very early to photograph the sunrise and some of the actors were not prepared to be up at that time so we ended up missing some of the best light before the sun rose over the horizon. However, we still were able to get some great photos just after the sun was up.

The next setup was to go to a nearby spa to shoot photos of massages and yoga. We spent the majority of the day there.

In the evening we went back to the condo that we were staying at in Cabarete to photograph some “swimming pool” shots and “hammock” shots.

Day 5
Most of the day today was to shoot at a beautiful lagoon. We got there in the morning and were then picked up by a helicopter where we spent 45 minutes flying around the coast to shoot some aerial photos of the coastline along with Playa Grande Golf Course which is a really nice golf course in the Dominican Republic. We were hoping to actually shoot ON the golf course but were unable to get last minute permission.

After the helicopter landed, we spent the rest of the day at the lagoon photographing the local kids jumping off the cliff into the lagoon.

We were able to use the same area to fake some golfing shots along with doing a bit of hiking shots with the actors.

Day 6
Most of today was spent on the beach to photograph some “lounging on the beach shots” along with kite boarding, wind-surfing, etc. Cabarette is famous for it’s afternoon winds and is recognized as one of the kite boarding capitals of the world.

Laurel Eastman is a champion kite boarder who has moved to Cabarette with her husband and opened up a kiteboarding school. We were lucky enough to have her and and some of her friends/employees perform for us while we photographed them. It was really cool to watch all the stunts and aerial tricks.

We then needed to setup a few shots that would represent some tourists going out and buying jewelry and then heading to a restaurant for a romantic oceanside dinner. The lighting for the dinner was setup by the video team and I was able to snag a few shots in between takes.

Day 7
This was our last day there and we just had to go photograph a local cigar roller in the morning and then pack and go to the airport to fly home.

We flew from Puerto Plata to Newark and then on to Detroit. We were very lucky that our flight out of Newark left that night because it was during the crazy rainstorm that hit the east coast. Lots of flights were canceled that night. We were sitting on the tarmac for over an hour and I just watched the pounding rain and lightening from the window and was just blown away that our flight actually took off, but we were definitely glad to get home!

Again, if you want to see the slide show, click here:
http://www.arisingimages.com/product/20070415_dominican/slideshow/slideshow.html

This is a very long post. If you want to just see pictures, you can view the slideshow here:
http://www.arisingimages.com/product/20070312_dominican/slideshow/index.html

So now that we’re finally getting caught up from being away, I thought it was a good time to post some pics and stories from the job we did in the Dominican Republic along with an explanation on why we got stuck there for an extra 3 days.
As I had mentioned in my earlier post, we went with two guys from an advertising firm that we were working for along with three guys from a video production team.

Day 1
We arrived in mid afternoon and the weather was beautiful. The seven of us and our gear piled into a van and headed for Cabarete which is a small beach community half an hour from the Peurto Plata airport. We were staying at a condo that was owned by the developer in charge of the whole project. It was a beautiful condo right on the beach and many of the pictures that I will show were taken right out the back door.

This is the backyard of where we were staying.

We had a little while to clean up and then headed down the beach to have a late dinner. There were small restaurants right on the beach.

Day 2

The next morning we woke up really early to photograph the sunrise and the surfers.
The sunrise was spectacular:

Unfortunately there were no waves so the surfers didn’t go in the water. We talked a guy into posing for us:

I loved all the different colors on the surfboards:

After that we had breakfast and headed back to the condo. It was time to shoot some beach scenes. We got a few good pictures, but there was not a whole lot going on so we didn’t stay long:

We decided to head down to an area where a river lets out into the ocean where there is sometimes some activity. There wasn’t a lot going on there either but by stroke of luck, we came across a beautiful girl riding a horse down the beach and she had no problem with us photographing her so we took lots of pictures as she passed back and forth at full gallop:

On the way back we passed some guys playing dominos on the side of the road:

We headed back to the condo in hopes of doing more beach scenes. At this point there was some more activity. The winds were kicking up so there were a lot of kiteboarders out doing tricks along with a lot of beautiful people strolling the beach:

We were also hoping to get some nice food shots for the brochures and ads but the food that we ordered for that purpose was not presented well and didn’t turn out that great so we stuck with some island drinks for the pictures:

Later in the afternoon we headed to a beach called Playa Grande which was a really beautiful beach:

We came across a group of young people who got really excited by the cameras and wanted to be in the photos/videos. These types of shots will probably not get used in the ads because the target market is a bit different but…oh well:

On our way back, our driver Adolfo knew of a lagoon area that had some really cool old boats:

Day 3

The next day we headed out early with a final destination of Jarabacoa where we would stay the night. We had to cross over the mountains and on the very top there was a small restaurant which created some neat scenes.

We then stopped in a large city called Santiago, but most of what we saw was not the type of thing they needed footage from so we didn’t stay long. I got this shot of the pigeons in one of the city squares and Cheridy found a really neat little salamander on the walls…those little guys are all over the place:

The weather was really bad when we got to our hotel. We checked in, relaxed for a bit and then headed out to get dinner and try to get some night life shots. We went to a really cool little shop on the road side which sold ribs:

After that we went to a club where we were hoping to get some good music/dancing photos. We got there about 3 hours earlier than when the place really got going so we had to just sit and wait. When it did start going, the music was so loud that it hurt.
Unfortunately the lighting in there was really bad so we didn’t come away with a whole lot.

Day 4

Today was when things got a little crazy. We were going to their annual Carnivale festival in La Vega. It’s basically like their Mardi Gras except the costumes are REALLY ornate (and evil looking). This is a celebration of their independence from Haiti. For some reason, as part of the tradition, they have ropes with bean bags on the end and they go around and hit people on the butt. Unfortunately some of the people get mean and they fill there bean bags with something really hard and hit people as hard as they can. At the end of the day I got nailed and it hurt to sit for the next four days!
Anyway, so we got there really early. Like…REALLY early just to scope the scene and get the lay of the land. Carnivale was one of the main reasons for this trip so we wanted to be as prepared as possible. It didn’t take long to be prepared and then we had about 7 hours left to kill so we just walked around, hung out, etc. etc. etc. We found a baseball game going on so took a few pictures of that:

Then we just looked around and tried to find weird characters walking around – like this guy:

By about 4:00 pm, it started to get really crowded. The music was blaring, the sun was beating down hard and the party was starting.

When the parade got going, it was just total insanity…the costumes were beautiful but insane and scary at the same time. Combine these scary masks with people running around and hitting each other and security pushing through to keep the parade moving, etc. etc…it was just nuts! Cheridy and I must have looked official with our big cameras and packs that we had because security let us through wherever we needed to go and let us stand wherever we wanted. We got a nice spot up on a platform where we were able to capture a lot of cool shots.

After being there for a while, it was time to move and get a better vantage point. That’s where things got ugly. It was so crowded, we literally felt like we were going to get crushed or trampled as everyone was pushing in every direction. It was so hot and everyone was sweating and we were just covered with other peoples sweat as everyone got smashed together.
Finally we made it up on another platform and were able to take a few more shots:

There was no place to stop so we had to just keep moving as we were essentially being pushed through. All we could do is try to protect our camera gear from getting broken.
Eventually we realized that we were done and there was no possible way to get any more photos in those conditions. We had to just ride it out and push our way through and try to make it out to the main square where we could breathe again. We made it out and sat and waited for the rest of the guys to make it through.
At that point panic set in as I realized that my pouch with passports, credit cards, cash, plane tickets…everything had been taken from me. I mentally went back in time and thought it through. I am very anal and careful to protect that stuff so I keep in in a money pouch that goes around my neck and underneath my t-shirt. However, at some point I took it off and I must have been wearing one of our camera packs and instead of putting it back over my head, I put it in my pocket (I think) and then it got pickpocketed in the crowd. STUPID mistake!!!! The choice was to either carry it with us or leave it in a van being loosely watched by someone we didn’t know who may or may not watch the van for the entire 8 hours we were there. I chose to keep everything on me…that was a mistake. A BIG mistake!!! A HUUUUUUGGGGEEEE mistake!!
We drove back to Cabarete to the condo where it was time to start figuring out what to do.

Day 5

Today we were supposed to go scouting to some locations for our next trip which will be in April. However, we were unable to do that because we had a lot of phone calls and things to figure out. We were supposed to fly home that afternoon but didn’t know if it would be possible anymore. After canceling our credit cards, bank cards, etc. we called the local consulate and he informed us that the only thing that we could do was drive 4.5 hours across the island to Santo Domingo and go to the US Consolate to get a new passport. Unfortunately they are only open Mon, Wed, Fri from 7:30-9:00 am and it was already Monday morning so we were going to have to wait 2 days to even get to the consulate. The rest of our team flew home that afternoon but they left us some money along with leaving us in good hands. The project manager for the resort development project is named Birch. He is an American guy and he helped us to get passport applications, file a police report, get passport photos etc. which took half the day. Then he had one of his crew (Aponte) take us to Santo Domingo that evening. Aponte is an amazing guy. He’s a Dominican and his family lives in Santo Domingo (south shore) but he’s currently working in Cabarete (north shore) on the construction project. We had a great conversation with him on the drive down. At sunset, we stopped on the side of the mountain road so I could grab this picture:

He dropped us off at a hotel in the historic district where we new we would be staying for at least two nights.

Day 6

The next day we new we had the whole day to kill so we decided to make the most of it and walk around the historical district of Santo Domingo. Again, we were there during their independence celebration so everything was closed which made it hard to get questions answered related to our passport debacle.
In the morning we just walked around town and took pictures of the old architecture:

There were lots of parades and celebrations and stuff going on related to their President. There were many times that we new he was coming based on the security guards where suits and earpieces followed by a parade of soldiers, but after waiting and waiting and waiting, we decided to just go as we weren’t sure that we were going to be able to take any photos with our telephoto lenses anyway. We went back to the hotel to relax for a bit:

We went back out in the afternoon and just photographed some more scenes around town:

Santo Domingo is on it’s way up, but it’s not really a tourist destination yet. There were still VERY poor areas and parts of the city were very filthy.
Later we stumbled on a military parade which was kind of weird. There were hundreds of soldiers lined up and ready to march so we sat and waited for the parade to start….and waited…and waited. The soldiers just stood there for about an hour as we just sat and waited. Then two hours past. After 2.5 hours, they finally started to march. We were in shock that they just stood there in full uniform in the beating down sun. I just don’t understand why they had to wait there for so long.

They finally started to move:

That night we had dinner and went back to the hotel to sleep because we new we would have a long day tomorrow.

Day 7

The next morning Aponte picked us up very early and drove us to the US Consulate where he dropped us off. The lines were already long at 6:45 am and the desk was supposed to open at 7:30 am. We waited in line outside and filled out a few forms. Most of the people there were Dominicans including the ones that worked there. Luckily there were a few people who spoke English which really helped! After that line, we were moved into another line to go through security. Once through, we went inside the building which was essentially a wide open room with bench seating for hundreds of people. We were told that our passport photos that we got in Cabarete would not work so we had to pay to get them retaken which meant another line. Once we got those done, another line. We waited as they belted out letters and numbers over a loudspeaker (in Spanish) and had to rely on people near us to tell us if it was our turn or not but it was so muffled that they could barely make it out.
Then we moved to another line. Then another line, then we got to get in the line to pay for everything before getting moved to another line. Once through that line, we were finally at the counter. BUT…it wasn’t the final counter. It was the counter where you turn in all your paperwork before you go to wait in the waiting room. The only reason we even made it this far is because I had copies of our passports uploaded to the internet so I was able to print those out and use those for proof of citizenship. If we did NOT have those, we would have had to have someone fly down from the United States that could prove that they’ve known us for over two years who could vouch for us. What a nightmare. Anyway, they told us that we would have our passports either the same day or in ten days. AAACCKKKKKK!!! So after that whole ordeal, now we got to go into the final waiting room. Where we sat…and sat….and sat. 2.5 hours later we were still there. There were people that had come in a long time AFTER us that had already come and gone. It was VERY frustrating. Cheridy started to get really upset and went to the counter to find out why everyone else was going first, but they totally blew her off. Finally we got called in and the woman we sat with was very sympathetic and informed us that if we came back at 3:00 pm, we could pick up an emergency passport.

At that point, we left the consulate to call Aponte who was working nearby. Birch really needed him back on the other side of the island but it was going to be another 2 hours before we could go back to the Consulate and then we had NO idea how long it would take to actually get the document. We were pretty sure that Aponte was going to have to go so we tried to figure out where the bus station was and figure out how the heck we would make it back. Even though Aponte really had to go, he decided to stick it out with us and save us the hassle of trying to make it across the island on our own. We picked up our passports at 3:00 and it actually went quickly and then we left to head back to Cabarete with a huge burden lifted off our shoulders. We called the airline who said that we could get seats on the flight out tomorrow afternoon and there would be no ticket change fee because they were business class seats. That was a good thing since we had hardly any money left and no credit cards.

Day 8
We’re back at the condo in Cabarete and we our flight from Puerto Plata was not going to leave until 5:30 pm so we had the whole day to wait. We decided to make the most of it and head back on the beach to shoot some more photos of anything and everything.

In the early afternoon, the winds picked up and the kite boarders were out in full force:

Birch drove us to the airport mid-afternoon and dropped us off. On the way to the airport, we realized that our cell phone was plugged in back at the condo to recharge it before our flight home. Fantastic!! We’re idiots!! However, we knew that we were going back there next month, so no big deal…we’ll get it later.
So we get to the checkin desk at the airport and they now inform us that we have to pay $240 as a ticket change fee even though we were told that we did NOT have to pay it earlier. At this point, we only have $50 left, no credit cards, and no cell phone to call home to have someone in the States pay for the tickets. We were drained, frustrated, and had no idea what we were going to do. Cheridy went through her purse to see if she had any spare money and in the process realized that she had one of our personal credit cards that hadn’t been cancelled. Praise God because we NEVER travel with that card. After an hour and half at the counter trying to get everything straightened out, we finally had plane tickets again. When we got to security, they had never seen an Emergency US passport before so they wanted to see some other picture ID. Ummmm…we didn’t have anything else…that was it!!! Again…we didn’t know what we were going to do.
Eventually the security guard let us through. When we got to the gate, there was yet another problem with the boarding pass that had to get resolved. AAAAAAAAGGHHH!! Get us the heck out of here!!!!!!!!!!!
We finally made it to Miami, got through customs and then were informed that lots of flights were being cancelled due to storms in the midwest and the east cost. Again, thank the Lord, but our plane left on time and we made it home at about 2:00 am.

It’s good to be home.

We had been gone much longer than planned so we were behind on everything and playing catch-up to try to get everything done.

We recently returned from one of the most unique jobs we’ve ever had. We were working down in the Dominican Republic to shoot images for an advertising firm who is doing the ads for a resort complex. Our goal was to shoot footage of everything that attracts tourists. This is a two part job. The first trip was ideally meant for a scouting trip, but we were able to get some great footage. The next trip will be more structured and planned out. We went down with Matt and Ben from Metro Advertising and Design along with a three person video production crew.
The main purpose of the timing of the trip was to shoot photos during the carnivale festival. One of the biggest celebrations happens in a city called La Vega on February 27th. Unfortunatly, while there, our passports were stolen (long story) and we had to miss our flight home and spend an additional three days there trying to get new passports. The US consolate office was across the island in the capital city of Santo Domingo. To get an idea of what that was like, imagine going to the DMV in a third world country where they speak another language over a muffled loudspeaker. It was a miserable 6 hours sitting in 8 different lines and waiting areas. Anyway…long story short, we got new passports and are now back at home.
Overall, the trip was a success and we got the images that we needed. Here are a few samples:

Cheridy and I are currently sitting at the airport on our way back from San Antonio. We’ve been down here for the last few days taking classes for business and marketing at a photography convention. As usual, we learned a ton of good stuff that we now need to take time to implement.
We were at the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) Imaging USA convention. We spent every day from 7:00 am to 8:00 pm learning and now our brains are full.

One day we went to the food court for lunch and we met a homeless guy name Joe who we asked to join us for lunch. We sat and talked with him for a while. It turns out that he was a Katrina victim and he actually was down in the 9th ward during the hurricane. He said that he was in a boat and there was another guy with him. At one point they past someone that was in the water who couldn’t swim that was going to drown. Joe said that the guy that was in the boat with him dove into the water to try and save the other guy but they both ended up drowning. Joe sat helpless in the boat because he couldn’t swim either. Nobody should have to witness something like that. It was a good reminder to us of how good we have things.

On a less depressing note…
the weather down in San Antonio has been crazy. When we got here, it was 70 degrees and humid. Today it is 29 degrees and freezing rain. Lots of flights have been cancelled, so we’re hoping that we can get out on schedule. Texas doesn’t get ice storms like this…in fact, a lot of the homes have their pipes on the outside of the houses so there will probably be a lot of people calling plumbers as the pipes froze and cracked. I’ll post some photos of the ice when we get home.

UPDATE:
We just got home…our flight left on time and went really smoothly. We just feel bad for the people that were stuck there. Lots of flights were cancelled. We met people that were had been at the airport for two days and met others that were told that their flights were cancelled until Saturday and it’s only Wednesday today. Anyway…we’re counting our blessings!!

Here are some pics from San Antonio:
The Alamo

The Alamo

The Riverwalk

The Ice

The Ice