King of the Hill

Somerset Place

Here is the plantation mansion. There are quite a few other buildings that have been renovated or rebuilt on the original site. Here is a link to the NC park site that tells about the plantation.
http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hs/somerset/somerset.htm

Pick'n Corn

While we were in NC we stopped to watch a farmer picking corn. Ends up it was someone I knew when I was a kid. His name is Milton but everyone calls him Buddy. Buddy and my cousin Rick were best friends in school. Buddy's wife was riding the combine with him and when they came to the end of the field to dump the corn in the truck she got out to see what these people in a minivan were doing parked in the field. After we introduced ourselves and found out we knew each other they let the kids ride in the combine. Brady and Sydney made one round(up and down in the field) and then on the second round I noticed the driving was a little more eratic. I looked through my zoom lens and realized they were no longer riding but were now driving the combine. They got a big kick out of driving the combine. If you zoom in on the pictures you can see some big smiles.

My Dad told me two farmers in the area had just bought new combines that were somewhat larger than this one in the pictures and they cost $500,000 each. I'm sure there was a salesman someplace that was happy.

We also stopped by Somerset Place which is a historic slave plantation and state park. It is about 3 miles from my house. This is brady pumping water with a hand pump. I remember they used to say that my grandma was one of the first people to have running water in the kitchen because my granddad put one of these pumps where it would pump into the kitchen sink so they would not have to carry water from outside. I don't know, maybe everyone did that? When you use this pump you always leave water in the bucket because you have to use that water to prime the pump the next time you use it.

Coe

My niece recommended me to Coe for his senior portraits. His portrait session instantly seemed like I was taking pictures of someone I had known for a long time rather than someone that I had just met. The baseball images are some of my favorites. I told him I would look behind him and he would look behind me and make sure a train didn't come down the track and surprise us. (I don't think there was really any chance of that happening)

Seniors

To see more senior images look at the post in 2006.

Courtney & Gabby

Courtney and Gabby are twins. Although they did not want too many of them together I think these images on the bridge turned out really nice. doing senior portraits is a lot of fun as there is usually a lot of energy from these sessions. When I get home I am completely pooped!!

Jessica

Here is a senior session with Jessica. She was a lot of fun to photograph. She had some specific ideas on what she wanted. It is always cool to work with the ideas that seniors have for their photo's.

Snake Handler

Here is Brady in one of his proudest moments. He caught a snake!! Brady and his buddy behind him decided they were going to keep it so they put it in a 5 gallon bucket and put saran wrap or something over the top so it wouldn't get out only to have it get out in the garage. Eventually we released it as I was starting to feel sorry for a snake in the hands of these two boys!!

Dance

Here is Sydney at her dance recital. She told me she got to be in the center because she was tall and in the back of the line.

Sunset

Here is a scene on the way back from church after VBS last night. I stopped in the middle of the road and put my emergency flashers on because there was no place to pull off on the shoulder of the road.

Came in Second

flower power

The Horses

I have been wanting to get some images of some horse races for some time now. It is amazing how fast these horses are running.

CAL Class Composites

You can double-click images to view them larger.

The Windmill

I was at a friends house tonight and he said it was time for me to add something to my site. He was tired of looking at the same old thing so here it is. I will try to do better.

I love to photograph old things that are rusted or in ruins. I love windmills as well so here was the best of both worlds- an old windmill.

I can remember visiting my grandmother in Nebraska. She had a windmill right beside her house. It was beside the windmill that I learned to whistle for the first time. I ran into the house to share with my grandma and mom my new found skill. I probably drove them crazy trying to whistle the rest of the week.

There was a long galvanized pipe that ran from the windmill to the stock tank. We would go and put our hand over the end of the pipe and let it fill up with water as the windmill would pump water. Then we would remove our hand and the water would come rushing out overflowing as we stuck our heads down in it to get a drink. It seemed that was the coldest and best water I have ever tasted.

Just a few years ago I couldn't be there but my Uncle was baptized in that stock tank by the old windmill.

By the way, this windmill is in Mercer County, KY.

engagement session

Here are some images from a recent engagement session

John & Lisa

This was a great wedding from this past summer. John & Lisa are two of the nicest people. I loved being a part of their wedding. There was an hour between the ceremony and reception and we went to downtown Lexington and did some extra images of the two of them. Even though we had to dodge rain showers we got some great images. One of the nice things about this wedding was there were 3 other couples whose weddings I had photographed who were a part of the wedding. It is great to see couples from previous weddings. It becomes like a family reunion.

Paul & Jessica

this is paul and Jessica. They had a great wedding although we didn't get to do any of the outdoor stuff we wanted to do because of rain. It rained over 6 inches in some places in KY that night and there was a lot of flooding etc. Luckily all of the wedding events were on high ground!!

What a fun couple

I love this photo of Paul catching a nap before the wedding. No nerves for this groom!!

Fall Portrait

Heather & John called me to do some fall portraits. They ordered several enlargements and they turned out very nice. I had just photographed the wedding for Heather's brother a few weeks before.