I went to California last month for a friend’s wedding and took a few extra days to go camping in Big Sur. Result: epic pictures.

I’m the proud owner of one of their custom-made seatbelt bags, and will very soon order myself a fanny pack. I swear, these are the best bags for biking around the city. The bag I have now is the perfect size for my camera and accessories. I think I use it nearly every day.

When my friends Krista and Blake got pregnant last year, I made the suggestion that I should fly to Austin and photograph the birth of their baby. Surprisingly, they took me up on that offer! Krista was due on June 30th and I had weddings to shoot every weekend, so I could only come down during the week in between jobs. I had a wedding July 3rd and another one on the 10th. So we decided to have me come down the 6th-9th of July. Since most first babies come 7-10 days later than their due date, this was a pretty good estimate of when the baby would come.

I honestly didn’t think time would work on our side, and half expected them to have the baby before I even got there on the 6th. I showed up, and Krista was still pregnant. We went swimming and then after dinner started to call it a night. (I was pretty tired from the plane ride). At about 9pm, Krista’s contractions started getting really bad. At around 11pm, Blake told me they’re going to the hospital. I rolled out of bed and threw on some clothes and headed to the hospital with them.

The next few hours were a blur. I hit a wall around 3am and fell asleep on the hospital couch in the delivery room, and faded in and out of sleep for the next couple of hours. At 6:30, I got Blake and I some coffee. Krista’s contractions were pretty bad this whole time, prohibiting either one of them from getting any kind of sleep whatsoever. At around 8am she started pushing, and at 9:20, little baby Lucy was born! 8 pounds 6 ounces.

It was a wild experience, and my first time ever witnessing a birth. I was pretty familiar with the whole process, so nothing came as a surprise. I actually was expecting it to be a lot grosser than it actually was. Of course, I didn’t post any gory pictures for the sake of general consumption, but I’m pretty happy about these “in between” and “after” shots of the birth.

My friend, Veronika, brought her pets over to the studio for some portraits. These make me want to make a whole wall of animal portraits somewhere in my house.

I don’t take pictures of babies very often, but my friends Rose and Justin asked me to take some of their newborn, Hazel. It’s definitely different than taking a regular portrait of an adult, and even different than taking portraits of kids. You never know what to expect from babies. It was challenging not having her look at the camera, and making “confusing” baby faces. But overall, it was fun trying to get some good shots of this little girl. Enjoy!

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