Hey everyone! It’s been quite a busy and hectic couple of weeks since my last post. Early the other week I was working on my portfolio website and all of the sudden my computer completely froze. I walked away for a few minutes to see if it would start working again but nothing! So I had to force shut down the entire system and of course it wouldn’t start up again. So I took her (yes I did just refer to my laptop as a lady, just like a car or a city) down to the apple store and they said I would have to wait a week or so. When I finally got her back they told me the hard drive had crashed and they had to replace it. They also made no attempt to recover the data because “they don’t do data recovery.” Thanks Apple Store! Thankfully I keep everything backed up in triplicate so no worries, but still! Do you keep your files backed up? The majority of people probably don’t. I’ve known quite a few people who lost every file they had for work due to a crashed hard drive. They just don’t make those things like they used to and it’s not worth the risk! I use a program called SuperDuper which actually makes a clone of hard drive on a backup drive. It goes above and beyond time machine because if you were out in the field and your hard drive crashed, you can actually plug in from your backup drive and boot directly to your backup. Whereas time machine only backs up the files to later restore if needed. Ok, enough computer geeking!

The Cattle Pen Ruins at Sunset | Fort Worth Stock Yards

Last night my wife and I went out to take pictures. It’s pretty nice having a wife who loves photography too, that way I don’t feel like I’m working when we go out together, we are just sharing a love for photography! The Fort Worth Stock Yards are a tourist trap, plain and simple. I’ve lived here my whole life and everybody wants to come here when they visit. But the only place people go is the main strip of stores, hotels, and restaurants. Sure, these sites are all old and rustic. But if you want to see the real history you have to go behind all the action. On the east end of East Exchange Avenue (the main road going through the stock yards), there is a parking lot just past the Cattle Pen Maze (as seen on the amazing race). This parking lot turns into a dirt parking lot where all the cowboys and cowgirls park their horse trailers during the rodeos and events. If you head north across the parking lot there is a huge set of cattle pens that are in complete disrepair, right behind Billy Bob’s. Is that confusing? These cattle pens are still used from time to time but some of them are in complete ruin. It’s a really cool place to take pictures and most people don’t even know they are there, or don’t know they are allowed to walk around in them. I got this shot about 30 minutes before sunset and the whole night there were these massive sun rays coming through the clouds. More photos from this night to come so stay tuned!

P.S. This would be an AMAZING place to do an engagement session, family session, trash the dress, senior, or any kind of session really. Let me know if you’d like to do a shoot here!