Thanks!

Cheers,
Zack

We all live in a big a$$ yellow bus. We are on the road with our OneLight Family Tour!

We are currently in Asheville, NC. As soon as we wrap up the OneLight here tonight we drive all night to DC. With the exception of Pittsburgh we are having mixers in each city and we would love for you to come out and catch some live music, win gift cards from B&H, OneLight DVDs, and network within your local photographic community. The mixers are free and open to the public. Here is where we will be…

7/1 :: Washington DC

7/6 :: Cincinnati, OH

7/8 :: Indianapolis, IN

7/11 :: Chicago, IL

7/13 :: Saint Louis, MO

7/15 :: Nashville, TN

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook for all of the details as to places and times in these cities. Hope to meet you soon!

Cheers,
Zack

About a month or so ago Meg announced that we HAD to get a family portrait done. Like, for real.  Knowing how busy we are and how photographer’s kids don’t have photos she said we had to hire someone to do it for us.

That led to the ultimate question… Who?  Who would we want to photograph us?

Well, that list is long but since it was Meg’s prompting she got dibs. Those dibs went to long time e-friend David E. Jackson from Wisconsin. Dave and his studio manager, Trevor, came down this weekend for the shoot. It was an amazing time and we love, love, love our photos.

You can see more on his blog.  Yes, we picked the Prison Farm for our location because we knew Dave would love it and it would suit our personal aesthetic. See his blog to see the images from there!

Thanks again Dave!

Cheers,
Zack

Needless to say my dear friends, it has been a tad bit crazy around here over the last 6 weeks since last I blogged!MOST importantly – Hawke has joined us May 16th!  He was born at home and both baby and mom are doing great!  I was apprehensive to say the least about home birthing but now I’m all for it.  IF we were to have another (which I don’t think we are!) there is no way we go back to hospital birthing. Ever.

For those who read the blog but don’t follow us on twitter and facebook and all that please know that I have been sharing lots of photos via twitter.  I mean, he’s not completely neglected on the Internet.  But life has been crazy to the point that I have yet to sit down and blog about our new little boy.

I could go into all the details but Meghan already has. Why reinvent the blog entry?

What’s going on from this point? Well, we just got home from vacation where we took all FOUR boys to Florida for a week. They had more of a vacation than Meg and I did and poor Meg got the shortest end of the stick since Hawke is pretty much dependent on her for all of his food. As soon as he was born my schedule blew up and I’ve been trying to balance work and home. You know how hard that is. Some things had to slide for awhile and the blog was one of those things that had to slide to the back burner.  I’m slowly coming back around and Meg and I will be back with some critiques in a week or two.  

I’m now off to San Francisco for some VERY cool speaking and teaching engagements!  Stay tuned!  

We are booked through July right now and we’re expanding the office to include a new face to our lineup in the studio. More on that in August!

Hope you all are doing well! Are you? Is the summer turning out to be busy?

Cheers,
Zack  

This is my lovely wife who complained in the last critique that I don’t take enough photos of her.  I’m calling this a maternity portrait because she is 9 months pregnant. We’ve been married for 9 months and 5 days. Do the math!  Yes… this is my maternity portrait of you my dear Meghan. Because it is a portrait of you while you are pregnant.

You see, I shoot portraits of musicians but it is a rare, rare, rare instance that I photograph musicians with their instruments. All the portraits I have of myself, a photographer, are without me holding a camera. So, a maternity photo, to me, isn’t about the belly. It’s about the place in time of the woman who is pregnant.  Meghan is going to remember this time because there she was, at Lenny’s Bar of all places, hanging out with me while I was shooting an assignment. That assignment was shooting portraits of musicians. None of them were holding anything they make music with. Still a portrait of musicians. 

Meg… I love you!  I hope you like this portrait of you! 

Nerd talk – Shot with a Nikon D3, 24mm 2.8. No post processing. Straight from camera. I was going to work with it a bit but decided it was perfect just like it is… just like my wife.

Cheers,
Zack 

So many of you have written, called, and commented I feel the need to let you know that Dad passed on from this life and into the next one this morning.  I was very fortunate to have been by his side.  My father was strong.  He fought the good fight and the doctors and staff at Emory University Hospital could not have given him any better care.  

The hero in all of this is my step-mother Elaine.  She stood by her man.  She loved my father so deeply and so passionately. She is strong and beautiful and is going to miss my father so much. They had such a beautiful life. She adored my father.

Thank you to all of you who have been thinking of us and praying for us. Thank you for all the support all of you, known and unknown, have given to us. My entire family appreciates all of your emails, comments, and messages. Dad is in heaven. The rest of us are still paying rent.

And to find a smile in all of this….

Let the southern good ol’ fashioned church lady casserole pot luck begin. I don’t know what ya’ll do elsewhere in the country, but when we die in the south, we make some damn good food.

Now, go love on your family while you still have them and while they still have you.

Cheers,
Zack 

Again…. Thank you everyone.

It’s been a weird week.

• Friday – Meg and I flew to San Francisco where I was supposed to shoot a wedding with Marc.

• Saturday AM – I got the call that I needed to get on home to say goodbye to Dad. We are told he won’t make it till Monday. That’s when we were supposed to be flying home. Thank you Cliff for covering our butt at the wedding on Sunday.

• Saturday PM – Meg and I have a chance to meet up with photo pals Ann, Gene, Jose, and Joel which means we didn’t go to bed really. Jose & Joel are awesome. Nice meeting you fellas BTW. Meg and I get back to the hotel at 2am or something stupid.

• Sunday AM – We leave the rental car with Marc. Meg and I catch the first flight home to Atlanta at 6am.

• Sunday PM – Stand around my Dad’s hospital bed all evening talking about what a remarkable recovery from the edge of death he is making.

• Early Tuesday AM – Called to the hospital. Numbers are dropping fast.

• Wednesday PM – Stand around my Dad’s hospital bed all evening talking about what a remarkable recovery from the edge of death he is making.

• Thursday – Shoot with Holiday Parade. Lady flashes her rock boobs at us.

I wonder what the weekend will bring.

Cheers,
Zack

My wife, Meghan, really does shine. I would not have made it this far without her. The fantastic thing about our relationship is Valentine’s day is just another day for us.  We have nothing special planned.  When we were talking about it in the last few days we realized that we have a great life together. We have regular date nights and we spend a lot of time together.  We are each other’s best friends.

If she and I were to do something “special” and “different” for Valentines, it would involve sitting on the couch while eating microwave dinners and bicker about the kids during commercials.  :)

Cheers,
Zack 

I have commandeered Zack’s blog in order to let all of you know what’s going on and to ask for your prayers, for those of you who pray, that Martin would pull through this.  Zack is doing his best to be hopeful, as are all of us, but his spirits are understandably low and he’s feeling overwhelmed and so if you think to pray for him, too, that would be amazing.  He could use them.  

Tuesday night, December 30th, we received a call from Elaine, Zack’s step-mom, that Martin was in the ER and that they were working to save his life.  He had almost gone into cardiac arrest.  The ER doctors told Elaine that had she gotten Martin there a minute later he most certainly would have died.  Martin has COPD ( or Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ) which is a progressive disease that narrows the airways to the lungs and makes it harder and harder to breathe.  It is a disease typically brought on from smoking, which Martin did, for 47 years.  For as long as I’ve known him he’s had to carry around an oxygen tank.  Other than that he’s strong as an ox, quick witted, and most definitely not a frail old dude at all.  ;-)  He had caught pneumonia and was having a hard time breathing the day of the 30th and by the time he and Elaine got a little bag packed and headed to his hospital he could hardly breathe at all.  When Elaine pulled up to the ER he had stopped breathing entirely and had passed out. Right now he’s completely intubated ( on a ventilator and feeding tube in addition to a “port” into his heart where all meds can be injected into his bloodstream without the need for a lot of IV’s) and heavily sedated.  He’s been given ridiculously strong antibiotics to knock out the pneumonia but is now unable to breathe on his own.  Every time the attempt has been made to lower Martin’s need for the ventilator his Co2 levels spike rapidly and the oxygen has to be brought back up.  The worry is that his lungs have reached their capacity to be able to function on their own, thus rendering Martin with the need for A.  a lung transplant (which is highly unlikely since he’s 78) or B.  Having to remain intubated and sedated.  It’s frustrating because, like I said, he’s healthy in every other way.

I have to go get Zack from the hospital here in a bit.  He doesn’t know I’m doing this.  I just know that he’s in a fog right now and all the things he’d normally be doing he’s not and this year had started off a lot differently than we had originally planned.  Just know that we are, and have been, working on getting the new OneLight workshop dates set in place ( things are going to be a little…well…a LOT different.  In a very awesome way… ), new sites launched, new shoots to work on, studio parties, art gallery showings at the studio, travel, a new baby, etc.  So hang in there while we manage this crazy roller-coaster we’re on.  We appreciate everyone so much.

I hope this finds all of you well and in lovely spirits with a pocket of peace you can dive into.

Meg

P.S. For anyone who’s ordered a OneLight DVD in the past couple of weeks have no fear! We haven’t forgotten!  I am personally going to make sure that is taken care of tomorrow. Also Zack’s brother, Chris, sent out a lovely email that I posted on my blog if you’d like to read it. 

It is with heavy heart that I have to report that we lost my step father this morning. Craig had been suffering from ALS over the past year and a half. It is a nasty disease that leaves your mind but takes your body. I haven’t lost a lot of close people in my life. My grandfather was the closest person I have ever lost and I regret so much that I never made a portrait of him. I just have these grainy disc camera photos of him to remember him by. Nothing that really says who he was or what he was about.

When I was working at Kinko’s I nearly lost my job twice. Both times for the same reason; enlarging prints for someone’s funeral. I would meet a customer at the counter and with red puffy eyes they would slide a dog eared, scratched 4×6 print across the counter. This person in the photo had just passed away and they wanted a 16×20 made to place by the casket. It wasa always some horrible photo. Never a great portrait. There would be a laundry basket in the corner. The drapes on the windows were stained. Reflections in glasses. Scratches on the print. I would take the job, put everything on hold and start to work on the scan in PhotoShop. This is a soul’s last known image on earth. They deserve better than this. My manager didn’t think this way. Scan and print. That’s it. I revolted and continued working on images for funerals. She wasn’t cold hearted enough to actually fire me for the few hours I would spend on those images but she wasn’t at all happy with me either.

That planted a philosophy I have on every single photoshoot. “I’m shooting for this person’s funeral.” I better make images that people will want to see and remember this person by. Something that shows who they were and what they did and how they were living their life pursuing a dream. I’ve made as many visits as I could over the last year to my Mom and Craig. They live in Elkin, NC. I knew this year I had to get Craig to sit for me. I had to photograph him before I lost him. Craig was a retired homebuilder and was now preaching at a church near Elkin. He was born and raised in Dallas, TX but moved with my Mom to Elkin for a slower change of pace and to be near my Mom’s family there. He loved the community and the church he landed in had him start preaching because they were in need of a new preacher. That dying little church began to thrive.

Knowing that things would escalate quickly I had prints made and shipping arrangement taken care of well in advance. Also knowing how many people loved Craig in his community, I had dozens of 8×10 prints made of this for folks to keep.

On my last trip up there a month or so ago I photographed Craig watching the kids play in the backyard. Goodbye Craig. My gosh we are going to miss you. You’re home now though. Finally in a place bigger than your home country of Texas. Are you photographing those you love? I’m not. Not like I should be. I have a big long list of people to get started on. You always think you have time. Sometimes you do. Most of the time you don’t. Had I not known that we would be losing Craig this year, I probably would have never gotten around to making the images above. Sad isn’t it? Me. A photographer who can’t turn a camera on to his own family. There’s your challenge for the week. Family portrait time this week.

Cheers,
Zack

PS – Needless to say I am leaving the studio for the next 3 or 4 days. All normal business will proceed later this week or the start of next week. If you ordered your DVD last week before it sold out, it will be out the door by tonight if it hasn’t already gone out the door this weekend.