How unfair is life!  Just when I want the words to flow and flow like butter on a hot roll, I get no help from the brain. All I can do is show you the world's cutest ten month old boy and the world's cutest one year old girl.  I will tell you both of the mom's are dear friends - one is new and the other is old. One silver, one gold. It's been an interesting year for me personally and having these women beside me has given great comfort and joy to the journey. 
Enjoy the blogshows, friends! And keep your eye out for flying pigs.  You'll find they are everywhere once you start to look for them.


 

Summertime, delicious-ain't-so-nutritious, summertime. I've been so guilty of taking the easy route drive-thru for mealtimes. The heat wave that's beseiged the Austin area is quite unwelcome and I so hate to complain, but really... if temps are already in the 100s how are we ever going to live until October when temps have been known to stay in the 100s then??  You think I jest but when you don't hear from me perhaps you should send out the search parties and comb the hot pavement for a shriveled up K-Ro (that's me). I wonder what my obit will say. I wonder if there will be anyone alive in Austin to read it. <Sigh> Nobody said the livin' was especially easy, but nobody said it would be this hard. Oh take me back to the staaarrt. (coldplay lyrics)

Without further ado from the comforts of my home studio AC, I now present to you the loveliest of families in a more formal set up than usual, but sometimes that's what it takes to document a family of many branches. I consider all my client families dear friends upon completion of our sessions. I just love my job to bits -- working with all shapes and sizes and attitudes and preconceived notions and best of all love.

Enjoy the sneaky peek and say cool! I mean that -- the cool part -- from the bottom of my heart. I love you, man. Choose Life and Live on strong.

Incidentally, "choose life" is another motto in my home. I use it whenever my daughter, Rosa Jane, is choking on her steak.  "Choose life, kid! Keep breathing. Fight for it!" and it always seems to work to our advantage... so far. Anything can happen!

(I really hope you can sense my dark sense of humor from over there at your computer. I'm practically laughing my head off. Blame my dad.  He always said you could drown in a teaspoon of water. He's a family practitioner and his laughter echos through the office with the sicker his patients tell him they are. Then everybody is laughing and the pain o' life seems to be a little bit less.)

"Rave On" by M. Ward has become my new favorite song on my iPhone repeat list. Love it to bits. Wouldn't you like to Rave On Faux-Toes by becoming a card-carrying fan on Facebook? Sure you would... but first realize you'll need your imagination and your squint eyes to pretend you have a real card to store next to your AMEX in your wallet. Impress your friends. :-)

Click on the big ol "FACEBOOK" logo above to be a fan... and you'll win a place in my heart forever.

I'm over the moon for what Lisa Woods of Now and Then Photography has done for me and my family. She met us in Gruene on the World's Longest day* to capture us in all our glory.  My stepdaughter was visiting from Chicago and brought along her Bay-area native boyfriend. The below image is by far my favorite.  I love that even RJ is giving us the "one-eye."
Click here to see more and to check out the super cool work of Lisa.  So glad she is my friend. Her friendship and camaraderie has infinitely increased the quality of my life and inspired my work as a photographer.  Thank you, Lisa.  I love you to bits!

Meet my sweet friend Ella.  In the summer of 2007, she found Faux-Toes and asked me to be a part of her sister's visit by photographing their families together.  Ella and I shared an instant connection, but our paths didn't cross again (despite being a stone's throw neighbor)  until just recently.  Here's a look back at images that make me want to cry because the kids have grown up and changed so much!



In mid-May news spread throughout the women's bible study community that Ella is battling a mean case of ovarian cancer.

And just like that everything changes.

I contacted Ella immediately to let her know I am here for her and would love to share my talents of Faux-Toes to bestow on her beautiful family.  Ella is one of those lovely people whom you speak with and look into her big blue beautiful eyes and you just instantly feel like the most important, most special person in the world because of her affection for you. I absolutely adore being next to her and always walk away hugely inspired.  A college girlfriend and I coined the term moms have "choppy talk" -- meaning that blurbs are spoken in between making sure your kid doesn't drink the drain-o or go head under in the swimming pool. I feel like the choppy talk between Ella and me could fill a book about life and wise advice.  I probably should be recording these conversations now that I think about it. They are so poignant and sweet and smart and encouraging and uplifting. I just LOVE Ella so big, so much.

Over the past month or so, I've documented Ella going through her chemo transformation --  wig shopping, chemo treatment, and even a head shaving party. After visiting with my doctor/ Dad one weekend, I let my earthly worry grab hold when he told me starkly that chemo therapy takes away the patient's good days. I felt my mission to make beautiful images for the family ever important and I just had to break through whatever boundaries that I had met with so far in my attempts because there is "NO day quite like Today" - my personal mantra.

Let me tell you a little bit about that day we scheduled and how it turned out *nothing* like I had it mind. The day started like any other -- brighter than humanly bright in central Texas, but at 7 p.m. just as I was driving to Ella's house this big, big, big cloud rolls into the picture to completely cover the sun.  I mean, it was almost dark a good two hours ahead of sun setting schedule.  I shook my head and laughed at God (hello, flying pig!).  Here I was with this big grandiose plan of sun-drenched images and God steps in and shakes things up. So we took a step back and approached it so laid back. It was sweaty hot and the gnats were something awful and although Ella looks absolutely stunning, she later confided she wasn't feeling that great.  I was lucky blessed to get what I got for sure.  I love how pictures only tell one side of the story.  I love how the best laid plans get usurped and then the next thing you know you hear the flapping of pig's wings flying high overhead. This is why I don't really like to plan things too much. Just vague semblances or ideas or what might happen... I think of plans like in a fluid and structureless and adaptable kind of way, like an amoeba.

All of this to say, there really is no day like today for pictures of you and your family. There are no guarantees for any of us for what tomorrow holds. Faux-Toes would be honored to tell a portion of your legacy's story. Ella shared with me just yesterday how unexpectedly critical these family images have been to her during the course of her treatment. There is no greater compliment than that. Thank you for letting me share these stories with you.

Enjoy the Faux-Toes, friends!


A couple of days later, we met up again for an intimate head shaving party. Ella's good friend's husband shaved his head, too. Another beautiful day in the life of Ella and her family.

***UPDATE***I have to say something about the girl in the brown swimsuit.  That's my daughter, Rosa Jane. I know *all* parents think the world of their children and for the most part it is probably true, but I have to say there is something extraordinarily beautiful about my daughter's character.  Most times, I don't hesitate to bring my "sidekick" along to shoots, but I was a little hesitant to bring her to the head-shaving party just because who the heck knows what a kid will say, anyway, right?! But one of my favorite images is with RJ in the center smiling back at Ella and Ella's uncertain daughter in the opposite corner of the frame.  RJ's smile somehow makes it all seem okay and a great diffuser.  I hope I'm not projecting too much or overstepping boundaries when I say that. This is just one more vibrant example about how we've all been impacted by Ella the Great. Thank you for letting me share.
  


  

Our sweet friend, Emma, turned one a couple of weeks ago. Personally, we're still reeling from how quickly a year flies by us. Life is made super sweet by the presence of this blue-eyed, jolly baby.  We love her family to bits and it's a true blessing to call them friends. Her mama and I  both have a deep affection for Nashville and called it home once upon a time and now lo these many years later we're neighbors on the lake. I love sewing little pieces of the world together so that it seems ever smaller and lovelier. It's just like when a real ladybug lands on your shoulder. Enjoy the Faux-Toes, my friends!