10. Depth

Taken at the Art Guys 25the Reunion in Discovery Green, this photo shows my love of depth of field. The subject is an older reggae singer working solo and I purposefully used the stage in the foreground as my point of focus making the image look, I think, a little more dramatic and lonely.

9. Antique

One of the first photos I took in 2008, this one was a shot of a model at the inaugural Dr. Sketchy event at Avante Garden. Every month since, I’ve had a scheduling conflict. I liked the vintage look of this photo and I loved working with the bright backlight and being forced to overexpose the window light. I have since fallen in love with overexposing background light for effect.

8. Caught

One of three weddings I shot this year (all represented in my top 10), this one was on the campus of Rice University. The couple, old friends of mine, were more than happy to oblige Katya and I in our ideas like this one, which I think turned out great.

7. Brother to Brother

Probably one of my favorite wedding photos ever not for the shot, but for the image contained therein. This was just outside Boston for the wedding of my step-brother, Michael. Next to him is my other step-brother, Andrew, and the rest of Michael’s groomsmen. I told them to act silly and this was the result. Joy.

6. Dry Dock

One of a number of photos I took in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, this just happened to be my favorite. Ike took its toll on Houston and Galveston in more ways than one. Seeing boats like these tossed up onto land just helped to illustrate how helpless we really are against mother nature and just how destructive she can be.

5. Paris, Over Here!

One of MANY photos I took on two trips to New York City this year, this is Paris Hilton outside the stage door of David Letterman. This turned out far better than I could have imagined. I really did not want to be one of the paparrazi - you can see them in front of Ms. Hilton. I just wanted to capture the mayhem that ensues when celebrities and the media mix. The fortunate timing of this and the perfection that is that flash at the right second reminds me that photos are as much about timing as they are about knowing how to work a camera and frame a shot.

4. Rose Petal Shower

Like the Paris Hilton shot, this was all about timing and VERY little to do with skill. I was honestly lucky to be in this position and pull the trigger at the right time. So many things come together to make this shot work and it is one of the best wedding photos I’ve ever taken.

3. Home on the Range

This was a part of the beautiful farm land I visited in Iowa this past summer. I was driving around with a friend and slammed on the breaks when I saw the light and the cattle. This is one of the few favorites I took all year that I really thought about as I was shooting - framing, exposure, etc. Iowa surprised me in a lot of ways - especially in just how beautiful it was, people and landscape.

2. Oh Happy Day

There are lots of shots I could’ve chosen as my favorite from NYC (this one or this one, for example), but nothing quite sums up how I feel about my time spent there like this one. The best thing about New York isn’t the iconic scenery, the food, the exciting night life. The best thing about The City is the people - visitors and residents. Despite many claims to the contrary (my own previously among them), the people of New York are some of the nicest, most helpful and most gracious I’ve met and they seem to have an energy and love of life you don’t find in most places. This little boy is a perfect example.

1. Winder Wonder[land]

In case you didn’t hear, it snowed in Houston this year, and I mean REALLY snowed. Naturally, Katya headed out with camera and me in tow. We proceeded to Discovery Green where the frozen lake ice skating was never more appropriate. I took other shots I liked, but nothing felt more like the snow night we had than this one. The little girl, the snow flakes in the foreground, the blurred lights and skaters whizzed by…it was like being in a different city for a few hours. It was wonder[ful].

Right around the first of the year, I hope to re-design this site to accommodate all of my diverse online interests and give everyone better access to all of the different websites I’m involved with as well as put up a bright, shiny new blog with a slightly different direction.

Thanks for paying attention and I hope you are having a great holiday.

Anyway, in these uncertain times, we all need things we to believe in. In a world becoming increasingly divided by our view points, we need something on which we all agree. I think I’ve found it:

Women’s breasts.

Let’s face it. We all love them. Men, women, gay, straight, black, white, adults, children…we are all fans. It doesn’t matter who has them or what they look like or how big or small they are. We are all captivated by them. Women love their own and other women’s. Men (gay and straight - you know it’s true) love them. It’s universal.

I propose that we begin every negotiation with this simple premise. Imagine the goodwill it would engender.

Conservative: Ok, well, let’s get this meeting on gay marriage underway.
Liberal: *sigh* Ok.
Mediator: Before we get started, let’s all find some common ground.
*grumbles from the crowd - what could we possibly agree on?*
Mediator: Who in here likes breasts?
Conservatives: WE DO!
Liberals: WE DO!
*laughs and high fives*

See how the love of breasts can bring even the staunchest opponents together? In fact, I think that there is no such thing as good and evil, just those who love breasts and those who don’t. There’s a third category: those who love them but say they don’t. Their lies do nothing but hurt us all and make our children cry.

We all should embrace (or squeeze, if you will) our love for the female breast. It is the one thing that can bring us all together.

Amen.

No, I’m not going to link to them for you, perv. Find it yourself.

However, something I noticed sometime ago appears to be missing from the pantheon of weirdo sites about the quirks of people. This is a trait I have determined through countless hours of investigation and exhaustive research to be nearly always indicative of attractiveness in women: bunny teeth.

I’m not talking about “buck teeth” - teeth that protrude out from the mouth like a horse. I’m talking about when the front two teeth are longer than the rest. Take a look at a few examples:

This is just a sample. Yvonne Strahovski from TV’s “Chuck”, Jessica Simpson (who seems to have since had hers mostly filed down - something too many women in Hollywood do), Megan Fox, Naomi Watts, Christina Applegate and Kirsten Dunst are just a few examples of women with bunny teeth who also happen to be hot.

Now, this doesn’t mean all women with bunny teeth are hot or all women without bunny teeth are not. This is not an “if and only if” logic equation. It is just, in my opinion, an indicator of attractiveness.

So, ok freaks, get on it and make up a fetish site for the bunny teeth. If you can have one for inverted nipples (don’t ask), you sure as hell can have one for this.

Every once in a while, I get in these contemplative moods, usually triggered by some bout of introspection caused itself by a challenging moment in my life. Today was one of those times and it got me thinking about how tumultuous and astounding life can be.

Two months ago…

I was about to have a fight with some guy named Ike - a fight that shut down more than the power in my house. In the time since then, I traveled to New York (and beyond) twice. I spent time laying in the sun in Central Park and riding in a van full of musicians over 3000 miles. I saw a relationship that had brought me incredible happiness end sadly over problems I didn’t see coming and I decided to put the house I’ve lived in the last 14 years on the market, foretelling another complicated few months to come.

One year ago…

I was happy, in shape and my house was clean. I was getting ready for the holidays and feeling good about life. I was finally over a relationship with someone who became a dear friend. I didn’t realize that, two months later, I’d be sitting in a hospital room deciding to allow my father to die with dignity and going through the most difficult time in my life.

Four years ago…

I didn’t realize that, in just about a month, my marriage would end.

Eight years ago…

While everyone else was trying to figure out who was going to be the next President, I was catching up on sleep after a nine-month battle to keep the Rockets in Houston passing a referendum that, on election night, seemed really unimportant compared to the battle over hanging chads and Supreme Court rulings that was to come. I had no idea that the efforts my friend and I made in the election would turn into a business he and I share as business partners today.

Fourteen years ago…

I was just getting back from my honeymoon. I saw the first real snow of my life. I was happy and would, in less than six months, own the first house of my life.

Eighteen years ago…

I was in the middle of a crazy relationship that would soon end and working at a music store trying to figure out where my life was going. I had no idea, in less than six months, I’d meet the woman I would marry and move inside the loop, never to return (dum dum DUM!!! - what, I like the dramatic music?).

Twenty-two years ago…

I walked down 48th Street in Manhattan marveling over the music stores filled with killer guitars. My best friend and I, young musicians ourselves, bought $2 scarves from street corner vendors and took porn flyers from clowns smoking cigars. The world seemed magical and wide open in front of us.

And today…

I sit at Coffee Grounds writing this, counseling a friend via email and wondering what is to come. As Tommy Lee Jones said in Men In Black, “Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”

That whole urban lifestyle is something that has always fascinated me. Well, if you haven’t been in downtown Houston recently, we’re getting a bit of our own urban life downtown as well. Besides the transformation of Main Street, we have the new House of Blues and other shops in the same complex. We added Minute Maid Park in the late 90’s and Toyota Center in 2001. We may have a Dynamo stadium before too much longer nearby.

But my favorite thing so far is Discovery Green Park. Before tonight, I had been there only once when my band did a show there this past summer. I didn’t get much of a chance to walk around - it was too damn hot - but it looked really cool. Tonight, I ventured down there for the Art Guys anniversary celebration and I was really, REALLY impressed.

I mainly went to see some friends play and take some pictures, but I came away with a new appreciation for Houston’s latest park space. The designers did themselves proud. The lake reflections were amazing, the stages in fantastic condition, the restaurants beautiful (the Lakehouse was quite tasty and reasonable) and the bathrooms clean. They seemed to put things in for everyone - a dog park, a playground for kids, I even overheard that they are going to freeze part of the lake for a skating rink this winter.

When I read some of the plans about the park a couple years back, I was a little skeptical. It felt like too much - like a disjointed mish-mash of ideas crammed into a park space. They most definitely proved me wrong. Oh, and even minus the Art Guys party, the park was full of people. Clearly, I’m not the only one who loves it.

If you’ve never been, do yourself a favor and do it while our weather is beautiful.

These are the primary intersections of me and my circles of friends, not necessarily my overriding interests though they are all up there. In one way or another, my friends are connected to me through one of these things and, on occasion, they intersect, but not often.

In only a few rare instances do I have friends who I somehow know through all four interest areas. Some, I only know through one. It’s a really odd phenomena to me and I wonder who else out there find themselves in the same boat. I’m guessing quite a few, particularly those with families who may or may not share your varied interests. For example, you may have friends with kids like you, but other friends who you just know on Twitter who are single.

It reminds me of being a kid and having friends from school, friends from church and friends who lived in my neighborhood (I didn’t go to public school, so the kids on my street didn’t go to school with me). It had an odd, disjointed feeling about it because my interactions were so different with each of those groups and often limited to very specific activities or interests. In some ways, I envy people I know who grew up with a group of people and remained friends for virtually their entire lives. In other ways, I like the diversity.

I don’t really have a point here other than to say it is something that has been on my mind lately…wondering how these odd intersections impact my life and which one’s mean the most to me.

The day after the election, I guess I’m feeling introspective or some other sensitive shit like that.

I am a big believer in opportunity for everyone, but I have to admit that I did not think that this is something I would see in my lifetime.

I’m proud of our country for being open to something different.

Yes we can.