The Treasures to be Found on my iPhone {New Braunfels Photography}

Most people assume I carry my camera gear with me everywhere. There's always a note of surprise when, at a party or out and about, a friend or acquaintance turns with surprise and says "what? no camera?" when something they deem a total Kodak moment pops up. But alas, no I do not carry my gear with me wherever I go. But I do have a camera with me most of the time. Probably the same one you have. The one that's on my phone.

It gets exhausting always being the one who's expected to photograph every moment. But because I am who I am and I can't let those moments go undocumented, I often pull out my trusty iPhone to capture those silly moments of daily life. My problem, however, is that they tend to stay on my phone for long periods of time. Imagine my surprise a couple of weeks ago when I attempted to take a photo only to get the message that my memory was full. What? I have to get them off my phone now?

So I downloaded finally and what I found was a treasure trove. That phone was packed with more than a year's worth of cool stuff. "How did I miss all this?" I asked myself. There are so many blogable moments here. So many cool things and fun shots. I can't believe all this was in my pocket the whole time!

So I went through and uploaded just a small sample of the treasures on my phone and I did have a hard time at narrowing them down. I love them all. I treasure them all. And I won't even mention all the cool videos my Boy took. I know he likes to borrow my phone from time to time to "make a movie" but I had no idea he was a total Speilberg!

So here you have it. My top iPhone images of the past year.



This one is my son after his coolest haircut ever. Needless to say it didn't stay this way for long. But it did grace the welcome screen of my iPhone for the better part of a year.



This one is too awesome for words. My son took up Taekwondo and decided to hold ninja lessons in our front yard for a while. Every day he'd rush home, as would the kids in our hood, to congregate on the lawn for another day's lessons. It was magical.



This is a fun one of Jayme at one of his science fiction conventions. We took it to make our oldest child jealous. She didn't want to come to the party. When she found out there was a giant dalek there, of course she was insanely jealous because who doesn't want to hang out with one of these things.



While up in Dallas for the above-mentioned convention, we made a side trip to the American Girl store at the request of my sweet then-12-year-old. It was a red-letter day for her.



Her older sister, however, thought the moment was worthy of her best eye roll ever. And I captured it all with my little iPhone.



This one is the sweetest that I found. My Boy hates kisses so I took advantage of him falling asleep next to me watching television. I made sure to take a selfie with the iPhone to prove to him that I did in fact kiss him while he slept. He wiped his cheek when I showed him even though it was hours later.



This one was taken at Texas School of Photography in May 2013. It's me and my favorite second shooter, Laura during one of the after hours parties. What a fun time.



This is the breakfast in bed I got from My Boy for Mother's Day last year. I'm so glad I snapped a photo of it.



Aw, this is one of my favorite. It was taken that same day on Mother's Day. I attempted to take out the trash at the condo on the beach we were staying at and The Boy jumped in and took it from me pronouncing that it is Mother's Day and his mommy would not take out the trash. I'll treasure this photo forever.



It's Baby's First Job! My girl just got her name tag for her very first summer job. I missed her helping me out on sessions, but I was so happy she was able to work another real job and earn some extra money.



This is me and my girls at a San Antonio Missions baseball game last spring.



Oh here's a funny one. This is at the dentist's office after I told The Boy that we weren't quite done yet. His sister was still in the chair for a while longer. I think he was ready to leave.



My baby girl was pet sitting for some friends and made a new friend. This kitty became a model for our Humane Society calendar later because of how she won our hearts.



This was right after I did my own page for the Humane Society calendar. I decided to go fill up my car with gas in full retro wardrobe and hair and makeup. Not a single person looked at me twice. My daughter was teasing me on the way home so I wacked her with this rubber chicken. That's how we roll.



This was taken at the San Antonio Museum of Art. It was a nice day with the kids. I saw them sitting in this window and thought it was so beautiful, if only I had my camera. So I took out the iPhone and still did okay.



Another priceless family moment. My girls squabbling over the front seat. Nice.



It's me and my girl and my sister at the Maroon 5 concert in Austin. How could I possibly carry that big bulky camera with me to this? I'm so glad I have this photo!



It's County Fair time and my boy loves the fun house!



This is my Boy at Freebirds with his Harry Potter wand that he made out of foil. I hope it's still there and didn't get removed. He'll be so happy to see it preserved forever on the wall.



We arrived a little bit early to an engagement session near an old church so we decided to explore the cemetery.



Halloween carnival time!



We finally got the keys to the new studio so me and January from Diamond Divas and Becky from The Bargainista got sweaty and dirty to get it ready for move in. Fun times!



It's Christmas tree time!



We stopped by to see the Girl Scout house before they closed it down for good. It was a sad moment and we saw that other girls were writing their memories on the wall so my girls added to it. Priceless.



My girl got a kick out of the way somebody scratched "Hogwarts" into the back door of the mall. It was a Kodak moment.



This is one of about a hundred selfies I found of my daughter. She likes to take my phone during sessions and clown around while I'm working with the clients. I love finding her little presents on my phone. Usually she'll change the image on my main screen for me.



The Golden Girl herself on a monorail in Orlando.



It's me and The Boy taking a selfie on the Dumbo ride at Disneyworld.

So that brings us up to speed. I shared more than I wanted but it was a really cool year. I hope I don't take another year to download all these images from my phone. I hear there's this cloud thing that will help, but I'm a little behind the times on that. Maybe next year.

Lisa On Location Photography

What I did on my Texas School Vacation {New Braunfels Photography}

Once a year I like to take a drive up to Dallas to participate in the bestest darn photography education in the world. The Texas School of Professional Photography is a week-long school/workshop/convention/tradeshow for professional photographers.

Each year I choose a class, but I have to be quick because some of them fill up fast, and I spend a week with some of the most amazing photographers in the world. Two years ago I was honored to learn some new wedding lighting techniques from Robert and Leslie Faust that I still use at every single wedding I photograph. Last year I sat in Robert Seat's class to learn some Photoshop techniques that helped me perfect my pin-up photography.

Each year I meet more and more fellow photographers and become more and more enriched in the culture of professional photography. I tell my friends I have a love/hate relationship with the school. I hate the drive to Dallas (and don't much care for the city itself), I hate being away from my family for a week, and I hate being away from my workload for a week. But I can't justify not going because I love what I learn. I love coming back with all this new information and then watching it take root in my own business and making me a better photographer and business woman.

This year I took a boudoir photography class with Kay Eskridge. She's a master photographer in Phoenix and she had so much information to share. We had a small class of 15 people and we had the Presidential Suite of the Hotel Intercontinental to ourselves all week. We had boudoir models coming into the suite daily to pose for us as Kay walked us through every detail of running a boudoir photography business. I got valuable feedback on my past boudoir work and a clear direction of where I'm going.

I'm excited share some of the new techniques and business practices I'll be implementing soon. In the meantime, take a look at some of the images I captured with our beautiful models in the class as well as some of the fun I had with my fellow photography friends during the evening parties.

Lisa On Location Photography