I Love Texas!

I have ,in the past, shared my body of Texas work with many of my friends, family and photo followers.  You might be familiar with a series I photographed on Texas from my website, self promotion, and this blog.  I worked on the project with my designer friend Daniel Pagan and wanted to share the final outcome of this project.  The coolest thing to me about the promotional piece, outside of all the travel we did, was the way the promo piece functions.   There is no staples to hold the piece together and each sheet of paper can be view separately or in conjunction with other images.  You can pull sheets out and put them on your wall for art.  In my opinion it was very clever.  If you desire to have one for yourself just drop me a line.

 Texas with Mexico in the background.

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USAA Advertisement

When I was a teenager my brothers and I would visit my father in Boerne, a little German town just northwest of San Antonio.  We would travel into nearby San Antonio to visit friends, shop and dine, and explore.  I remember driving by the gigantic USAA complex and wondering "what the heck goes on in this place?" I never thought as a child that I would be photographing advertisements for the company as an adult. Thanks for hiring me to photograph your ad! USAA started out in 1924 as the United States Army Automobile Association by a group of U.S. Army officers to self-insure each other because they were unable to get auto insurance due to the notion that soldiers were a high-risk group. Today, United Services Automobile Association (USAA) is one of the top ten automobile insurance providers in the country. USAA now employs more than 21,500 employees throughout the United States, and was ranked 45th on Fortune Magazine's list of the "100 Best Companies to Work For."

So, props to USAA for providing a great service to our military and their families!  And a special thanks to Phil Foster and Tatiana Luneva-Evenchik for deciding to work with me.  It was a pleasure to work with you both.

USAA_AtEase_PatrickLanePhotography

Falco columbarius - Merlin

This isn't my typical blog post, but I am an avid birder and love birds of all sorts.  This poor bird often referred to as a "pigeon hawk" was just hit by a car by my house.  He was still warm when I set up a portrait of him to pay homage to him.  So sad when beautiful predators like this one are killed. Here is some more information about merlins.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(bird)

Merlins

Red McCombs School of Business

These photographs are from a series for the University of Texas PhD. candidate brochure.  We had a great time working with Rick Kendrick and Marsha Miller to get these portraits produced on time and on budget.  We were all pleased with the images and look forward to working more with the University of Texas.  Hook'em! 

Waltz Across Texas - Days 3, 4 and 5

We left El Paso later than we'd planned on day three. On our way out of the city, we were amazed at the stark difference between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez while driving along I-10, the interstate rides along the United States-Mexico border in the greater El Paso area. We did our best to capture that contrast while remaining north of the border. Leaving El Paso, we raced down I-10 eastbound until we hit Sierra Blanca. After a little harassment from the Border Patrol agent at the check point, we were back on our way to Marfa and Davis Mountains State Park to finish out the day.  Prior to arriving in Marfa we saw a UFO hovering motionless in the sky ahead of us. We concede it was just a weather balloon, but it was still an awfully eerie sight.

Day four began with an early morning trip to McDonald Observatory in the Davis Mountains, a beautiful location with friendly staff.  They gave us a tour around the giant telescope and let us go around the catwalk for unobstructed views of the valley below.  We continued on through Fort Davis and Alpine where we watched the Sul Ross State University Lobo baseball team practice.  We then moved on to Kerrville to call it a night.

We awoke on day five to disappointing weather.  Thankfully, the four days preceding provided clear skies and temperatures in the 70's.  We were able to salvage some of the day by shooting some portraits with waitresses from the Hill Country Cafe in Fredericksburg and a few of the firefighters from the Boerne Fire Department.

Please check back with us as we progress through post-production of this project.

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Waltz Across Texas - Days 1 and 2

Patrick, Victor, and I (Joseph) just wrapped up day two of our five-day West Texas tour, an enjoyable journey thus far.

Day one got off to a rocky start outside of Marble Falls (damn you, GPS!), but we quickly recovered and continued on to El Paso.  Highlights included meeting a dog-showing poodle peddler from Washington state, swimming in the spring-fed pool at Balmorhea State Park, and revisiting some of the houses we grew up in.

We stayed in El Paso for day two, traveling around the rapidly-growing city and its surrounding communities. We started off with Uncle Hiram in his Canutillo bakery, then stopped by Franklin Mountains State Park on the way out to Fort Bliss.  Following Fort Bliss, we stopped by the Charcoaler for some burgers (El Paso's finest) and continued on to the missions in Ysleta and Socorro.

The three of us will continue our trip by visiting Marfa, Alpine, and Fort Davis.  We plan to head to San Angelo for day four and back home on day five.  Check back for updates during and after our trip!

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UFCU Ad

ufcu

Here's another ad recently sent to University Federal Credit Union (UFCU) customers like ourselves. This was shot here in Austin at Umlauf Garden.

LG Ad

LG Advertisment

This image was photographed on location in South Padre Island, Texas, and was used in an LG ad.  Marco Ramirez and Marisa Quintanilla, who are amazing actors, are currently based out of Los Angeles, California.

LG Advertisment for Washers and Dryers.