A couple of weeks ago, Tracy Hedeman asked me to come out and get some pictures of her younger son Trevor and his show heifer.  We are all proud of Trevor and this heifer- they won pretty much every division and grand champion they had entered up in this year.  She was actually shown last year by his brother Lane, too.  She is an incredible female, and it was lots of fun to watch him be so successful with her (ps- she’s also on ADM show feed ).  Tracy is our 4H leader for Morgan Mill, so we were all running together at a few of the shows.  Congratulations Hedeman family on the great show season, and for raising two good kids!  There are some fun candids and action shots of Trevor roping on the slideshow- you can click here to see the action! 

I had the chance a few weeks ago to photograph this year’s foal crop by Spooks Gotta Gun.  He’s an incredible reiner who is putting his stamp on his offspring… lots of bald faces, socks and blue eyes!  Beautiful babies were everywhere.  See more color and flash here!  Thanks to Lynda Adlof and Hicks Ranch for the opportunity!

My good friend Joy Hawks has organized a new registry ABR to let the equine atletes of the bucking horse world shine.  This will be a huge step towards recognizing these athletes that are a part of our Western American history.  Don’t be fooled by any images that may lead you to think otherwise, for these animals are as well kept & fed as any other valuable performance horse.  They have a job, they are bred for it, and it truly shows.  I took some “artsy” shots for Joy at the Saturday night performance of the Pauluxy River Blowout a couple weekends ago.  The light was horrible, so what I ended up with was a great set of punchy images that really portray the lifestyle, animals, and action that these folks know and love!  :)  You have to check out one of the next performances….  shhh…. this may be the next PBR/CBR!  Check out the gallery here!

Well, I have officially earned my first cover with Erath County Living Magazine!!!  I had the pleasure of working with some great people to help get images for their ads in the magazine, as well as submit a few photos for consideration in the magazine.  They chose this pic of Carson and Cookie as well as a few others inside.  It is a great publication- very high quality and has great stories and pics of our Erath County.  Thanks to the editor Treva and the publisher Jay for using my image, for I’m sure there were many other great ones to choose from by other local photographers.  You can pick one up at the Chamber or other local businesses. 

Last month a group of horsemen and women gathered to pay tribute to the Legacy of a Legend- Ray Hunt.  As quoted from the weekend catalog of events, “Ray’s influence has changed the horse world.  It was always clear that his priority was always the horse; but in helping the horse, he helped the human.  He created an industry within an industry.  Ray Hunt was a Master Horseman.  His legacy will live on through his students and all who come after.”

I want to thank Carolyn Hunt for allowing me access to the floor so I could get an incredible view to document the grandsons work with their horses, as well as the other the clinicians.  To see more about the people who attended and the idea behind the tribute, visit Ray’s website.  There you can also purchase educational DVDs.  To view a very large gallery of images from the day, visit here.  Just be patient while the slideshows load, there are over 900 images.  But it is worth the wait to watch the images on slideshow to music   This is one of my favorites of the day…

A couple of moths ago, we invited all my mom’s side of the family from Dallas to come out to the ranch for a girl’s weekend.  I was wanting to experiment with some off-camera flash, and we needed and excuse to get together.  What better way than to have a bunch of beautiful sisters and cousins to model for me!  It was around the first anniversary of the death of our grandmother/mother MaBelle.  She was a classy, elegant, beautiful woman who left behind a legacy of Bell girls to fill her shoes!   She  was affectionately known as Gamma to the great-grandkids.  She always had beautiful skin, eyebrows of a movie star, and alot of the time had a little tissue in her hand or a box of kleenex nearby! 

So, in memory of her, we got together and had a fun girl’s weekend and played dress-up.  As you will see, there is no lack of beauty on my maternal side.  We had a fun session with my mom and sisters Saturday afternoon.  The only thing we were missing was cousin Kendall.  We missed her beautiful self and her great sense of humor-  we will plan earlier next time and make sure everyone can be there.  Even little sis Lauren took off from playing doctor for the weekend!  If you want to see more of this…..

 click here!