Good morning, folks!
What do you get when you combine 30 weeks of pregnancy, 100-degree heat, and a ghost town with rusted old cars? Scratch that. I've never been good at making introductions anyway. Give your buddy Matt a do-over, pretty please.
Let's start by meeting Alex and Amanda, proud parents of Ethan and Kaelyn. Here's their family of 4.5 (for now).
So. I don't always do maternity sessions, but when I do, I drag my wife and kids to a ghost town infatuated with Coca-Cola, venomous snakes, and cactus quills that apparently shoot out at you if you get too close. That's right, the owners showed us all the gnarly pictures. So I present you with...
...a snake-bite-and-cactus-free family (yaaaaaaaayyyyyyy)! But seriously, this place was SO cool. When I showed up, there were already a bunch of photographers sitting on the front porch packing some serious glass (photographer-speak for lenses) and huge Manfrotto tripods. My kinda people. That immediately told me that we were in for a treat, and that Amy made a very wise decision in finding this location. I love you, honey.
There were so many cool old vehicles in this ghost town, one of them being an old school bus. Fun fact about school buses: they're yellow because federal law requires them to be. And not because they're mellow. Or magic.
Kaelyn had fun snooping around the Not-So-Magic School Bus while we prepped Amanda for the maternity photos. I call her "Boo." It's the pigtails that remind me of Boo from the movie "Monsters, Inc."
So Kaelyn and Ethan will get to be big sister and big brother, and I'm sure Amanda and Alex will share ALL the photos! For now, let's dig into the maternity session itself and why this was different for me in terms of location.
Nelson Ghost Town had these HUGE hills to the west, since the town kind of sits in a little valley at the edge of a hill. This place doesn't really get beautiful sunsets, just an extra 45 minutes of twilight, so with a little pop of off-camera flash (to the left), the images in this location can really stand out!
Enter: Alex. Super-dad. Soldier. Nurse-in-training. Goofball extraordinaire. The best client is anything but stoic, and these two definitely gave me a run for my money.
So we may have taken a little risk here. remember the excited jumping cactus we talked about earlier? Yeah, that's them in the background. Thankfully, the image is compressed, so the cacti aren't as close as they look. And yes, they're sitting at a piano. Much to my surprise, a few of those piano strings actually worked. Not saying you could play the theme song from "Cheers" on it or anything, but it still produced the tired sounds of old ghosts.
Fun fact: Elroy, TX hosted the 2012 Grand Prix at the Formula One Race track. Not bad for a population of 125.
Another fun fact: the 1950 Dodge B-Series pickup truck shown above does not work. Yep. Total goner. I guess we'll be using our Chevro-legs to get out of here.
So that's it for this family. I can't wait to photograph them again when they have not one, but two new additions to the family. The second addition will be Pearl, their new golden retriever that will be Ethan's new friend. To read more about the circumstances surrounding Ethan and Pearl, I invite you to check out Ethan's Facebook page HERE.
That's it for today, folks. It was great chatting with you, and I can't wait to talk with you again.
Best,
Matt
0 Comments