Shutter Snap Studios

Over the weekend we had the opportunity to do some portraits of a really wonderful and fun couple! Aron and Jimmy got married at the church in their hometown last Tuesday and came here for their honeymoon. They were staying at the Hotel Contessa on the Riverwalk and we took some great photographs in and around the lobby there as well as at spots on the river!

We got to spend 4 hours with them on Saturday afternoon for their portraits. I really like being able to take longer with clients because I feel it helps us come up with the best images possible. Also, it gives everyone a chance to acclimate to each other and get comfortable. As you can probably tell, they have such a sweet dynamic that just shines through in their pictures! Speaking of pictures, check out just a little of what we came up with below. Congratulations Aron and Jimmy on your marriage; may you have very many wonderful and happy years together!

Last night I overhauled the site navigation on my website and I am very excited about it! Previously we had buttons across the top under the banner logo. It worked decently but was a bit confusing since the buttons changed places depending on what page you were on. They had to be different since I couldn’t possibly fit all of them across in one big row and putting them elsewhere on the page didn’t fit with what I wanted the site to look like either.

All of that is over now though. We now have a spiffy new drop down menu navigation using css and javascript. I didn’t write the code myself, I got it from here. As you can see, the new navigation system actually makes sense and looks the same on all the pages! It also allowed me to slim the site down by taking out a couple of placeholder pages such as a parent gallery page that just had links to the actual galleries themselves. Also, the navigation menu is friendly to the search engine spiders which is important. It took me maybe 2 hours from start to finish to get done on the whole site, which in my world is virtually painless when it comes to working on the website!

You have to realize, I made my website myself and learned completely as I went. Previous attempts to make a website ended with a solid page of red after an hour and me giving up. Getting the website to where it is today is something I’m VERY proud of! Sure, it’s not as hip and flash filled as a lot of websites out there, but I think its clean, simple, and nice looking. Also, it has no music, a BIG deal to me. I literally scream at my computer when sites load music without asking me if its ok!

I also wanted to mention that on Saturday we have a session with a really fun couple, look forward to seeing some pictures from it soon. Also, in the past week or two I’ve found out about 3 different friends getting engaged, so congratulations to them! Last, but not least, thank you to my parents for the comments they recently posted. They have always been extremely supportive of me in all the things I have done and I love them very much. There’s a photo of them below!

I was just thinking today about how much I like the rain. More specifically I love thunderstorms, the bigger the better! In keeping with the spirit of wishing for rain, here is a photo of lightning that I took about a year ago. It was when a particularly large storm rolled through and it was absolutely breathtaking. We only had one mishap that night…I almost drove halfway to Corpus without really realizing it and we were out until around 5am!

I have an absolutely wonderful dog, her name is Babe and we adopted her when she was a 9 week old puppy. We adopted her from a wonderful organization called The Animal Defense League. If you live in San Antonio and are looking for a dog or cat, I strongly recommend looking here! The ADL is the largest non-profit, no-kill shelter in the Southwest and I think thats a good thing. When you consider the fact that the San Antonio Animal Control euthanized 32,799 pets in 2006 while only adopting out 2,389 you can see how an operation like the ADL is needed and valuable.

Anyway, I’ll step off of my soapbox now. Babe has now gotten old enough and calm enough that she will sit for pictures without being exhausted! Previously one of my favorite techniques for photographing her was just to tire her out enough that she would lay down, which is pretty effective. However, it leads to her having her big tongue dangling out for every picture. The tongue wagging is cute for a few shots but you can’t have them ALL that way! This time however we had a major breakthrough, I got her to sit for some photos involving lights, umbrellas, reflectors, the whole works. The trick was simple…small pieces of hot dogs. Babe will do just about anything for food! Some of her “head shots” are below.