Part Deaux.... hahaha, so lame.  That's about the extent of my French, though, and for some reason people in New Orleans insist on using "eaux" to spell every word that has a long "O" sound.  What can I say.  Paris has the Eiffel Tower and amazing art, Venice has charming architecture & beautiful canals, New York has Broadway & glamour galore, and New Orleans has "eaux".  Oh, and beignets, which I would argue is just a tad seaux much more impressive. Here are my workshop images from last week in New Orleans.  In some cases we had some models for the hands-on shooting sessions, and in other cases we just photographed each other.  About the first two thirds of these were photographed using just available light and reflectors, and towards the end of this post are some off-camera flash images using a simple one or two flash setup. Lindey, one of the photogs in New Orleans, brought her two adorable kiddos out for a mock children's shoot.  Both Ben and Pailyn were fantastic!

Haley photographing Kelly.

All direct sunlight in the middle of the afternoon with a silver reflector to the right of Ben to provide some fill light.

What's up, G.Q.?

Loved this light on Haley.  Very simple setup with the sun lighting her from behind and a silver reflector off to her right to provide some directional light.

Isn't Pailyn ridiculously cute?

We serendipitously stumbled upon this little spot between two houses with sunlight coming through to light up this spot on the wall.  Thanks to Tim for adding a little more light with a reflector to Karen's right.

Loved this setup.  Karen dresses it up pretty well, too.

Lindey and her kiddos!

The rest of the images in this post were photographed with off-camera flash providing the light to separate the model from the background. BTW, we totally scored a fantastic model in Simi.  She was the MC the night before at the Cat's Meow and graciously didn't kick Tim and I off the stage during our hideous karaoke butchering of Friends in Low Places.  Tim asked her if she would model for us the next day, and she was fantastic.  So natural and fun in front of the camera.

Love this series on the we side walk and street.  This was lit with a flash in from of Simi with a 22 " soft box modifier attached to it and then another flash on the ground behind her to provide a little light to separate her from the background.  In fact, if you look above her right boot, you can see a cable peeking out that connected the 2nd flash to a Pocket Wizard wireless transceiver.  Oops.  Photochop musta missed that.

Really dig the vintage b&w feel of this one.

Again a two flash set up.  One in front and to Simi's right with a 22" soft box and a second flash behind and to her left to help separate her from the scene behind her.

A single flash laying on the ground abour 10 ft in front of Simi and pointed up right at her.

Probably my favorite image of Simi.

The holiday fog is starting to lift, and things are slowly getting back to 'normal' around here.  I meant to post these images of Kevin, Sara and their kiddos before I closed up shop before Christmas, but I musta mentally checked out a day or two before I officially turned out the lights.  I've known Sara for several years now through my work at TI, and her & Kevin are such fun people to hang out with.  In fact, we'll be joining them and a few other fun couples for an early New Year's Eve dinner in a couple days, and we're so looking forward to it.  Oh, and did I mention how cool their kids are?  Since they know me and have gotten comfortable around me, they're pretty easy to work with on the other side of the lens, and we had a blast playing around up in McKinney a few weeks ago.  Well, maybe an Arctic blast.  We moved their session up a day to avoid a cold front that was coming in the next day, but it was still pretty frigid by the end of our camera date.  They were all troopers, though, and we got some awesome images to show for it.  Here are a few of my favorites from that day. This first image was made possible by...

... mom running a stick through dad's head.  I love it when parents can be silly with their kids; it's so helpful in getting natural, authentic smiles.

Sometimes ya gotta do a little of this...

... to get a little of this.

Love this brother-sister image.

Fantastic moment.

Considering it was probably in the upper 40's a this point, I'm amazed we were able to still get such great images.  These guys were much tougher than I woulda been.

One of my favorite family sessions from last year was with the Moores.  Their kiddos are as cute as they come; so cute they decided to add a third.  And, well, why wouldn't you add more with those kinda genes?  If they ever decide to add a 4th, the hardest part will be coming up with another set of initials to keep them all straight. [grin]  Besides mom Maureen and daughter Cassidy, there's JC (dad), RJ (big brother) and now baby brother JP.  I'm sure at our session there were at least a couple moments when I had a brain freeze and just mumbled something unintelligible plus the letter J. Kylie and I headed over to their home to capture a few images of JP as well as RJ & Cassidy and a couple group images.  Tell me these kids aren't adorable.  I dare you. JP giving us his au naturale look.

RJ laughing at my corny, and I mean CORNY, jokes.

Cassidy goin' Hollywood on me with her upside-down shades.  So sweet.

"Hey, I'm here! I'm here! Let's have some fun!"

I wish I still had a Big Wheel.  I'd have a big smile plastered on my face, too.

Love some of these last ones of the 3 of them.

Cassidy's got killer eyes.

Having photographed family sessions for more than 5 years now, sometimes the details about each one get a little hard to remember.  Let's face it, most days I can't remember what I ate for dinner the night before or where I put the car keys 15 minutes ago (which, unfortunately, I occasionally walk around looking for them and find them in my hand several minutes later).  There's been a handful of sessions, though, that clearly stand out to me for a variety of reasons, sessions that I'll always remember.  My session with the Weintraubs a couple weeks ago will be one of those sessions. Jen Weintraub, a fantastic Dallas children's photographer I met a few years ago, contacted me last year in November about scheduling a session to capture some images of her and her kids.  Jen was going through a difficult period as she and her husband were moving forward with a divorce, and she wanted to create some images of a new start for the new family that would become happy art to decorate the walls of their new home when they found it.  It just felt like a healthy, healing thing for her to do, and I was honored she asked me to photograph this new beginning.  She is a strong woman (not to mention funny & creative) and truly passionate about her kids, and having the presence of mind to do a photography session at that time, a time when I think photography would be the furthest thing from most moms' minds, would be an immeasurable gift to both her and the kids now and in the years to come. I'm a big believer that there's a purpose for everything that happens in our lives.  With weather and crazy schedules getting in the way, it took us a year to make this session happen.  Turns out those said weather and schedule issues allowed time for the kids to get adjusted to their new life, and as Jen mentioned, they are much more happy now than they were at this time last year, so the timing of this session was exactly what it needed to be. The 2nd reason this session was so memorable to me was for less nobler reasons, but truly amazing just the same.  The day before my session with her and the kids, I had photographed an engagement session in Deep Ellum near downtown Dallas.  That session was a ton of fun, and everything went great except I left my $550 light meter in a parking lot.  Without a nametag or label on it.  Downtown.  With a couple million people in the DFW area.  I didn't realize it until the next day when I was packing up my gear to go meet the Weintraubs for our session and realized it was gone.  So annoying because, believe it or not, this was the 2nd light meter I'd left behind.  So I went to meet Jen and the kids at the Arbor Hills Nature Preserve, and she and I were just chit-chatting while we were walking to our first spot when I mentioned leaving my light meter downtown the day before.  She looked at me, paused for a moment and asked, "Where you photographing in Deep Ellum yesterday?  An engagement session, right?"  Uh-huh.  "I have your light meter."     Out of all the people downtown that could've ended up with my light meter, she found it.  And I just happened to have a session with her the next day!! What are the freakin' odds?!?  Turns out she was photographing 2 sweet little girls at the opposite end of the same alley I was photographing Brandon & Perrin's engagement images.  In fact, I remember seeing another photographer with a couple people waaay down the alley, but they were too far away for me to realize it was Jen.  Anyway, apparently after I had moved on to the next location, Jen and her clients had made their way down the alley to where we were a few minutes before and found the light meter.  Of course, because I was a moron and didn't label it, she had no idea it was mine. Until the next day.  Anyway, an amazing story.  Like I said, there's a purpose behind everything that happens to us. Okay, okay.... on to the images.  'Bought time, right?  This session really was a ton of fun, just as much for me as Jen and the kids.  They were so easy to photograph and a pleasure to hang out with for the afternoon.  I think we got more than a few images that really tell a story of this family and their personalities, and here's my favorites. Ben is such a ham.  Once he gets goin', he's a Kodak moment waiting to be photographed.

Sweet Coco... she's a 3ft tall ball of adorableness.

Sweet, beautiful, big sister Sam.

Coco cracks me up.

Really like this image... such natural interaction.

Delicious.

30 seconds before this Ben was crying.  Then he was burying his head trying to hide his laughing.  Foiled!

The composition's not perfect with this image, but this was a moment that just happened and sometimes things aren't technically perfect, but you just gotta roll with it. if I woulda taken the time to change to a wider angle lens or even to just get up off the ground and back up, I woulda missed this perfect moment.

Seriously?  Do kids' expressions get any better than this?

Since her mom's a photographer, Sam's pretty comfortable with a camera.  She picked up one of my camera's and just started firing away.  She's a natural.

Here's my angle of this image...

... and here's Sam's.  Image copyright © Samantha Weintraub.

I might ask Jen if I can hire Sam to be my second shooter.

Another one of my absolute favorites.

Another authentic moment.

If this was Facebook, I would "like" this next image.  More than once.

Jen's just as easy to photograph as the kids.

3 seconds before this, Coco was running toward's the rest of the gang.  Her little feet couldn't keep up with her excitement.

Sam, mom & Ben were each holding their arms out waiting to see which one Coco would run to.  And the winner is?... Ben!  Love these expressions.

Thanks again, Jen, for the opportunity and honor to capture this special time in your new family's journey.  And thanks for letting me tell your story to encourage others who might be traveling on a similar path.

I can't wait to share the images from a recent session with the Weintraub tribe later this week.  There's two remarkable stories around this session that I'll share with the full post, but for now here's just a little taste of what's coming...