My father, the cowboy...

My dad, born Manchester, England, 1932. 

Going native, Austin, Texas, 2011.

Just Kids

                                                                                             Vivian

                                                                                               Finn

                                                                                              Vivian

Last call from the Vivian and Finn session...

Vivian

                                                                                          Vivian

This is Vivian, Finn's sister (see yesterdays post). If you ask me why I enjoy photographing children, I'd say it's their lack of self-consciousness, their spontaneity. And of course, kids as handsome as Finn and Vivian make me look good too. Spend more than a few minutes with them, hold a camera handy, and you're sure to wind up with a lovely result.

Finn.

                                                                                               Finn.

Question: Are you available to shoot family portraits, kids, etc?

                                Answer: Of course! Kids are particularly fun to photograph...

Saint Cecilia

Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music and poetry. It's also the name of a beautiful, secluded hotel in Austin. The photograph above depicts the bar of Saint Cecilia - which explains the vintage Rolling Stone cover featuring Texas native Janis Joplin. The property is the jewel in the crown of Liz Lambert, who I enthused about previously here. It's also the hotel in Austin where the real rock stars and musicians stay... Robert Plant was hanging out the night I was there recently. Or am I being indiscreet? Anyway, it's a remarkable place...and more about which later...

My Kind of Guy: Hugh Laurie

                                                  Photographer Unknown - citation requested

I equate happiness with contentment, and contentment with complacency, and complacency with impending disaster.' Hugh Laurie

I've long admired Hugh Laurie, going back to his early career and routines with Stephen Fry. Having read Gavin Edwards' profile of Laurie in the NY Times magazine, I like him even more. Apparently we share similarities in attitude, if not a parity in talent.  Certainly I share his philosophy though: happiness = contentment = complacency. I've thought of it in exactly those terms any number of times (though I tend to think of complacency leading to redundancy, rather than 'impending disaster.').

There's something refreshingly real about Laurie's curmudgeonly disposition in this profile. His take on the difference between England and the US is spot on: 'We differ by only 5 percent in almost every field, except when it comes to religion, and then we part company by about 300 percent.' Coming from England, where organized religion is largely invisible in the day-to-day, yet living in Texas, where there are almost as many churches lining the roads as there are pubs lining the streets of England, I can understand this.

I wanted to weep with joy and recognition at his take on the differences between British and US television: 'I think good-looking people seldom make good television... And American television studios almost concede before they start: 'Well, it won't be good, but at least it'll be good-looking. We'll have nice-looking girls in tight shirts with FBI badges and fit-looking guys with lots of hair gel vaulting over things. So at least we'll have achieved that base standard of entertainment. He shook his head. 'I think that's hugely misguided. The glory of American television is Dennis Franz.'

Hugh Laurie: my kind of guy.