video tutorials in the near future | I need your help!
I try to keep things as fresh as possible here. I’ve been working really hard to add high quality, relevant content to the site for my readers and I think this is a good next step. Over the next few weeks or maybe months, I will be developing some online training videos for people interested in photography. I’m currently in the brainstorming phase of what videos to produce and what topics to expound on. I have a good idea of what I’d be interested in making, but what really matters is what interests you! So I am currently taking requests and recommendations for what videos to focus on. There are three main ways to cast your vote: Leave a comment below this post, send me an email to contact (at) jamesbrandon.cc, or you can send out a tweet that says something like this – @jamesdbrandon, I think you should create a tutorial for _______. I’ll tally up any votes I receive and use that to decide which videos to focus on first. Thanks in advance everyone!
The Historic Cowtown Coliseum in Fort Worth
Fort Worth is my home. I’ve been here all my life and the only time I want to leave is when I visit Hawaii. Despite the ridiculously hot weather, unreasonable humidity levels, and the occasional tornado, it’s actually quite a pleasant place to live. I live right between Fort Worth and Dallas, and on any given night if I have a choice, I’m going to Fort Worth. It’s just so much more laid back than Dallas. I could spend all day taking pictures in the Stock Yards, and all night hanging out at Sundance Square. Not that Dallas is bad, I just feel more uptight there, you know?
The image below is of the historic Cowtown Coliseum on East Exchange (the main street running through the stockyards). I’ve been there a few times over the years for the rodeo and even the occasional boxing matches they host. The whole area is rich in history and this place is no exception. It was built in 1907 and completed in 1908. The coliseum hosted the worlds first indoor rodeo, the first live rodeo broadcast, the first night time horse showing, and more. If you’re ever near Fort Worth, you’ve just got to come by the stock yards.
The Cowtown Coliseum
121 E. Exchange Ave.
Fort Worth, TX 76164
1-888-COWTOWN or Metro 817-625-1025
Just finished editing this beautiful wedding from May. Alisha and Ben are an incredible couple! I actually had a Bible class back in the day with Alisha and then we had their wedding referred to us through a mutual friend. The wedding was held at First United Methodist Keller and for the reception we drove a short ways over to Watermere in Southlake. The whole wedding was an absolute blast and I can’t say enough good things about Alisha and Ben! They are both very involved with a ministry that I adore; Sower of Seeds. And they have an incredible heart to serve God and be involved in changing the world. Here is a collection of some of my favorites from the wedding. Congratulations Alisha and Ben!
First United Methodist Keller
1025 Johnson Road
Keller, TX 76248
817-431-1332
Watermere at Southlake
251 Watermere Drive
Southlake, Texas 76092
817-748-4000
The Images
Alisha getting ready
The dress
Ben looking all GQ
The guys
The girls
Game time
About to walk down the aisle
Saying their vows!
The first dance
Alisha and her Dad
They had a deck of cards at every table so most tables were playing Texas Hold ‘Em
Okay, not cool! All of that birdseed was all over me and my camera about a millisecond later! I’m pretty sure someone through their
hand full straight at me!
Congratulations again Alisha and Ben. You two were a blast and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for you two!
A while back I had the pleasure of working with BJ and Amber (one of my recent bride and grooms) of Anchor Marketing and Design to create images for a new website. The shoot was for a simply amazing BBQ restaurant in Haslet called Avondale Station Barbeque and I’m pleased to say Anchor just finished their new site! I cannot stress to you enough how good this place is! Avondale Station is run by Mitch Tidwell, and owner by his father Mike. Mitch went to culinary school to become a chef and apparently he learned a lot, because seriously people…this stuff is amazing. I’m from Texas, so I am kind of a BBQ snob, and I know what good BBQ is and what good BBQ isn’t. Their brisket is the most tender through and through brisket at any restaurant I’ve been too. The pulled pork is so tender that is falls apart as you take a bite out of it. The spicy link sausage has just enough kick. The fries are homemade right in the kitchen and cut from whole potatoes. This place is seriously the real deal and I have absolutely no problem driving 30 minutes from where I live to eat there.
Avondale Station BBQ
12259 Business Hwy 287 N.
Fort Worth, Texas
info@avondalestationbbq.com www.avondalestationbbq.com
817-439-4623
Anchor Marketing and Design
I also can’t speak highly enough of the work Anchor Marketing and Design does. BJ and Amber have become great friends of ours since their wedding and I am consistently blown away by their work. They handle website design, graphic design, branding, advertising, social media marketing, and search engine marketing. Amber is also a regular contributor to Jennifer Adams Design and Lifestyle blog, so check that out to.
The Shoot
For the photo shoot, I had BJ and Amber on hand to get input for the website that these images would ultimately be for. We all had a quick meeting to go over shots needed and then we all worked for a few hours getting menu items plated and ready for their close ups.
The Setup
The set up was fairly simple. We shot the menu items on a table in the restaurant near a window that had great natural light pouring in. I set up a 4 foot, white backdrop behind the table with two 580 EX II flashes shot through soft boxes. One was at camera left shooting down at the food from a 45 degree angle, while the other was at camera right on the table shooting directly on the food. Add in the natural light and there you have it. I triggered the flashes with a Canon STE II Transmitter and then had my 1Ds Mark III (see my review here) on a Manfrotto tripod and tethered to Lightroom on my Macbook Pro. Tethering sends the images from your camera directly into Lightroom with every press of the shutter. It’s a great way to get instant feedback on the images without having to rely on the 3 inch LCD screen on the back of the camera. However, I did use the liveview function on the 1Ds to make sure the images were tack sharp and my depth of field was spot on before every shot. Ok, the images, hope you’re ready to get hungry …
Avondale Station’s famous smoked brisket. Mmmmm
The brisket sandwich with homemade fries and coleslaw
The Turkey Plate with Texas toast and homemade mashed potatoes
My favorite shot of the day, the Pulled Pork Sandwich Plate with fried okra, mashed potatoes and a jug of iced tea!
Yes, it’s probably the most amazing peach cobbler on the face of the planet. These guys don’t know how to make bad food!
Today is going to be a busy day! So much do in preparation for Cancun! Charging batteries, packing equipment, packing in general, cleaning the house, answering emails, editing pictures, the list goes on and on. My wife Kristin is going to try and come along but she is flying standby and the flights are looking pretty over sold. So if you could all pray that she makes it on the flight somehow, that would be greatly appreciated! The wedding I am shooting is on the 9th and our anniversary is on the 10th, so I would prefer that we not be in different countries on our 3 year anniversary!
Gallery Night A Success!
I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who came out to gallery night at Main and Vine Art Gallery!. I was there from 6-10pm and the place was packed the entire time. I got to meet a ton of new people and it was so cool to see people studying my work and trying to figure it out. I must have heard, “Wow it looks like a painting,” at least twenty times during the night! I also got to meet in person a few photographers I have only known through facebook up to this point, as well as some new photographers I had never met before at all. I plan on getting more and more involved with the local galleries around here so be looking out for more information. I may be doing some classes on photography before too long.
Ben and Alisha’s Wedding at Keller UMC
Last month I got the opportunity to shoot the wedding of Alisha and Ben Hansen at First United Methodist Church of Keller. Also known as Keller UMC, this church has an absolutely gorgeous sanctuary and is a great place to consider for a wedding in Keller, TX. The back of the sanctuary is made of huge glass windows from the ground to the ceiling with a huge wooden cross being used as a support for the entire wall. If you have a wedding here, you will likely be helped by Lisa Grelle, the Business Administrator and staff wedding coordinator. She did a fantastic job of making everything run smoothly. She is also an aspiring photographer so be looking out for her!
I actually met Alisha a number of years ago in college. We had a Bible class together she sat right by Kristin and I while we were dating. She also ironically enough went to the same church we did back in grade school. Small world huh!? So needless to say when I got this wedding referred to me by a good friend, I was pretty excited! While I am still in the process of editing this wedding, I thought I would post a few preview images here on the blog. Enjoy!
First United Methodist Church of Keller
1025 Johnson Rd.
Keller, TX 76248
817-431-1332
As many of you know, Landscape and Travel Photography is a huge passion of mine. It gives me a way to see the world, and it’s a creative outlet for remembering the places I’ve been and a way to show the world what’s out there. Well, recently I was excepted into two local art galleries and one of the galleries is going to have an art show early next month where my work will be on display. I’m still getting the details together, but as soon as everything is set I will post the date, place, time and other important details. Stay tuned, hopefully you can make it out! Here’s one image that will be on display:
Anthony’s Chiofalo | Northwest High School Senior
The day before we left for Hawaii, I was able to squeeze in a last minute session for Anthony. We had been trying to get this session done for a while but seemingly every shoot I had in April had to be rescheduled because of rain or circumstance. We did the shoot in and around the Fort Worth Stock Yards, one of my favorite places for photo shoots. Anthony is going to Southwestern Oklahoma University on a football scholarship and leaves in a month or so. Good luck brother!
Back in February I had the honor of photographing the amazing wedding of Amber and BJ at the glorious Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth, Texas. The wedding was absolutely gorgeous, thanks to Julie Eastman of Extraordinary Events & Designs. She is a tremendous talent, and I highly recommend her if you’re looking for a wedding planner in the Dallas Fort Worth area or anywhere else for that matter!
I’m pretty excited to show this slide show. We got so many good images from this wedding and it just couldn’t all fit in one song. So we did two! What you wouldn’t know without watching the video is that the wedding had a Beatles theme. How cool is that!?
Bass Performance Hall
525 Commerce Street
Fort Worth, TX 76102-5440
(817) 212-4280
Julie Eastman
Extraordinary Events And Design website blog
I love the Stockyards. I grew up here in north Texas and Fort Worth in general has always been one of my absolute favorite places. I could spend my life just hanging out in Sundance Square and the Stockyards. If there ever was a place that screamed Texas, it would be the Stockyards! Old, red-brick roads, Texas flags, daily cattle drives, old steam engine trains, weekly rodeos, cowboy boot shops, barbecue. If it’s Texas, it’s at the Stockyards. If your ever in the area and need a unique place to stay, check out the Stockyards Hotel. It’s been in business since 1907 and hasn’t stopped since. There are 3 floors of rooms, the top of which gave shelter to the infamous Bonnie and Clyde! The hotel is incredible; the architecture, the furnishings, the feel of the place. They even have a saloon! And even better, they can do weddings here! Brides, this would be an amazing place for a wedding if your after that rustic Texas theme. Here are a couple images of the hotel from a couple weeks ago while chasing the Texas sunset.
The Stockyards Hotel
109 East Exchange Avenue
Fort Worth, Texas 76164
1-800-423-8471
A few weeks back we took a trip to the Fort Worth Zoo. I wanted to test my 1Ds Mark III out and what better way than wildlife? The Fort Worth Zoo is one of my absolute favorite places to go, every time I go I feel like a little kid again! There’s just something about the environment, the trails, the animals, that just takes you straight back to a simpler time. It was rather chilly that day so we only stayed long enough for a quick walk through. However a quick walk through at the Fort Worth Zoo takes a couple hours at least. My favorite spot has always been the cheetahs. They are so elusive and hard to photograph. I’ve been there several times in the past and not been able to even see them because they were laying behind the bamboo in the back. This time was different though, the cheetahs were hungry, pacing briskly back and forth across the entire grounds they were kept in. I couldn’t help but notice that one was eyeballing me the entire time, and I got a fairly uneasy feeling when I noticed the only thing separating me from this guy was a 8-10 foot fence that I was looking over. 8-10 feet doesn’t seem like much for a cheetah to clear does it?
After the cheetahs we headed over to the lions, my second favorite! Now that I think about it, I seemed to have the attention of quite a few animals that day. And the look on the lions face below doesn’t tell me he wanted to play. At least with the lion there was a 30 foot trench separating us. I’m still pondering that cheetah fence in the back of my mind. I really think he could clear that fence if he had his mind set on it. But maybe the zoo people are smarter than I am about man eating carnivores and there acrobatic skills?
Here was a brief second he took his eyes off of me to clean his prize lioness.
And finally a quick shot of a little meerkat, not quite as ferocious as the cats above but again this little guy locked eyes on my lens. So cool! Did you know meerkat’s are part of the mongoose family? The live in the Kalahari Desert and South Africa primarily and live in groups called mob’s or 20-50 members!
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!
Brides, if you are looking for an amazing, classic, elegant place to get married, look no further than Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth. Bass Hall is located right across the street from one of my favorite places in the world; The Flying Saucer, in the heart of Fort Worth at Sundance Square. I have always been a fan of Bass Hall, so when Julie Eastman of Extraordinary Events and Design asked me to shoot a wedding there, I was all over it! Julie Eastman was an absolute pleasure to work with by the way, and I would highly recommend her and her team to any discerning bride who wants the best. She is a brilliant decorator and a crazy gifted planner!
Bass Performance Hall
525 Commerce Street
Fort Worth, TX 76102-5440
(817) 212-4400
MEET AMBER AND BJ
Amber and BJ (the bride and groom) are two of the coolest people I have ever met! We finally got a chance to meet about a week before the wedding (something I insist on!) and I could tell right away that it would be a fun wedding. Both of them have great personalities are very genuine! I am drawn to genuine people, and because of this we ended up talking until the coffee shop closed and they had to kick us out! The wedding was a blast and very few wedding have that much dancing, for that long! That’s why I LOVE weddings! They are massive parties where everyone is having a blast, and I am there to capture it for everyone to remember. It was a blast, and I have some great pictures from the wedding! BTW, the two of them operate a marketing company called Anchor Marketing and Design, so check them out if you are in need of marketing advice, a website, blog, etc. But not now, they are currently on a plane to sunny Cancun to honeymoon! Have fun you two!
DETAILS, DETAILS | VAN CLIBURN RECITAL HALL AND MCDAVID STUDIO
The ceremony was located in the Van Cliburn Recital Hall which is actually slightly under ground. It’s pretty cool when you walk in because while there are windows lining the walls near the ceiling, the windows are at ground level. The room is covered in genuine, dark hardwood and the room is equipped with brilliant lighting with flourishes that adorn the walls. After the ceremony we headed over to McDavid Studio for the reception. McDavid Studio is another gorgeous room that you really can’t describe without just showing an image! Below is a sneak peak of the wedding. I will post more later, just a few details for now .
Hey there! My name is James and I'm a photographer. Although I
try and to avoid pigeon-holing myself to any one style of photography,
I do specialize in wedding and travel photography.
I reside in Fort Worth, Texas with my beautiful wife Kristin who
is always by my side shooting with me.
The goal of this blog is that it will be an online community where I can
share my travel work, recent weddings, and any other shoot I may be involved
in at the time. I try and update this site at as close to daily as possible,
so check in often and let me know what you think of the place.
I also have guest bloggers on here from time to time. These people may be artists,
photographers, videographers, or anyone else that I feel you should know about.
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