Meet sweet baby Tyler! I had so much fun photographing him when he was nine days old! I will never cease to be amazed by the miracle that is a newborn!

I was honored to photograph the beautiful Brooke of the Class of 2009 recently! We had a lot of fun roaming around looking for great locations! I love these shots!

I photographed Jared’s Senior images at the gorgeous Canyon West Golf Course recently! Everything is getting so green and beautiful!

I arrived to the location early to photograph the Mickles’s (club owners) four amazing longhorns. Jared arrived and we got a couple of shots with them in the background. Right after this image was taken, we started talking to them and Tonto the Bull did NOT appreciate that at all! He charged us! I don’t recall running that fast in quite some time!

After we finished at Canyon West, we headed to some of my favorite spots around town!

We were in Midland not long ago visiting family and my VERY good friend, Kenda, drove about four hours to meet me there so I could photograph her son Alex! I photographed his sister, Keeley last year. Aren’t they gorgeous siblings?

We started out racing the ominous looking weather around downtown Midland and then safari-ed around until we ended up at the Midland Christian School fieldhouse. Special thanks our good friend Greg McClendon for letting us use the facility!

What a wonderful day with my wonderful friends! Thank you for making the drive!

I FINALLY got to shoot my first maternity session! The best part was that my friend Cindy was willing to be my guinea pig! This is baby number four for her - doesn’t she look amazing!?! I can’t wait to photograph baby boy Carter!

Ben Londo won the 4th tournament in Toughest Cowboy! There were really good performances by Erik Wolford, Chad Eubank, and Steve Woolsey too! Here’s one of my fave pics of Cowboy Ben!

Toughest Cowboy is moving to Wednesday Nights on SpikeTV at 10:00pm CST - right after UFC! Don’t miss it!

Bandy Murphy, Toughest Cowboy of Tournament 2
(Poster designed by Matt Minnichsoffer of Grit Rock Rodeo)

Okay, this is a little different from the last post! I’m bringing the cowboys back to remind you that you really need to set your DVR for Toughest Cowboy tomorrow night! I’m totally hooked! It’s definitely not for the faint of heart! It’s exposed this really “gladiator” side of me I didn’t know I had!

I photographed these guys back in December before they shot the show, and I didn’t have a clue what they were willing to endure to be the last cowboy standing and win a ranch! Here are some of my favorite cowboys (they’re really all my favorites!) and some highlights: (CLICK ON THE GREEN LINKS TO SEE VIDEO!)

This is Steve Woolsey from Payson, Utah. He was the Toughest Cowboy in Tournament 1 and has been doing GREAT! Plus, he’s a super nice guy. And tough.

I really liked Jared Green (Socorro, New Mexico) and was really sad to see him go last week. He was injured so badly here in the first tournament, he just had a really hard time coming back. And that wreck was after he had been injured in his first ride and couldn’t lift either one of his shoulders! But the dude went for 8 in the knockout round on a bull - the fourth animal he had ridden that night - to make it to tournament 2! I didn’t think there was going to be any stopping him.

Ha, I love this guy! Erik Wolford (Adrian, Michigan) would give you a beat down then eat a lollipop! And you would never suspect it just looking at him! He BROKE his collarbone here in Tournament 1, but he just kept riding and scoring like nothing ever happened! I do not know how he does it.

Well, there’s a fine line between tough and just nuts, and I’ll let you decide where this falls. Charlie Barker (Terrebonne, Oregon) got his face kicked in here in tournament 2 on his first ride of the night. He didn’t really know where he was, and he had a roll of toilet paper up his nose the rest of the night, but he just kept riding!

Okay, that’s all for this week, even though I haven’t even told you how Chad Eubank (Cleburne, Texas) nearly cut his finger completely off. Oh, and Weatherford’s own Tommy Joe Lucia, Executive Vice President of Grit Rock Rodeo, is the Commissioner of this deal!

You gotta watch this show! Do you really need any more reasons?

And then leave me some comments and let me know what you thought!

This past weekend, we travelled to San Antonio for Aron and Brandon’s Engagement Party and Engagement Photo Shoot. It was so much fun! Aron and Brandon are so much fun to be around and are so comfortable and sweet together! I will get some engagement party photos up in another post, but today is all about this couple!

We started out at where else? The Alamo! I am not really sure what all was going on that day, but I’ll tell you one thing, the Alamo is a happening place on February 14!

These ladies were all decked out in their southern Civil War Era best and were great to play along with us!

Aron and Brandon are both studying to become dentists, and met at dental school! We thought it would be fun to get some shots up at school. This one was just for fun!

They are pretty excited to graduate in just a few months!

I wonder how many times they’ve passed each other in these halls? Bet it’s the best part of their day!

Thanks guys for such an incredible weekend! Your love is inspiring! I can’t wait to video your wedding in June!

So about a week ago, my five year old decided to start dressing up like Jack Bauer. No, he doesn’t actually get to watch the show, but he knows just enough to know Bauer is Mr. Cool and always on some kind of secret agent mission. He wanted me to take his picture, so I figured I’d take it all the way! Here is who we like to call Eli Bauer, son of Jack!

Here is one of the websites I designed and manage. It is for Weatherford Christian School and has been a valuable communication tool for them! I have a lot of fun creating the content, taking the photos, and keeping it fresh! Take a look!

http://www.wcslions.org

I had the pleasure of photographing the Garvin family on a ridiculously cold day at Chandor Gardens! Everyone endured the cold and we had a fun time shooting lots of photos! I was playing around with different composites and thought I’d show some of my favorites!

I had a great opportunity, thanks to my friends Jake Felts and Brad Morrow, in December to photograph the finalists for the Spike TV show Toughest Cowboy! Toughest Cowboy premiered January 29th and can be seen on SpikeTV on Thursday Nights at 10 p.m. Central Time. It was a really fun meeting all the guys, who are from all over the country, and hearing some of their stories! Also, Tommy Joe Lucia and Matt Minnichsoffer at Grit Rock Rodeo were great to work with! Here are a few of my favorite shots from the day!

Dusty Elkinton


Chad Eubank


Bandy Murphy


Steven Dent

I was excited to video Josh and Amanda’s wedding a couple of weeks ago and got a few good photographs as well. Congratulations guys and have a really fun honeymoon!

Go Vote Today!

I have been super busy with editing, videoing, photographing, and building websites! So much fun and not near enough time to get it all done as quickly as I would like to! Over the next few days, I’ll give you a peek into what I have been up to!

Today, here are some snapshots of some (not all!!) of my favorite Abilene Cooper Cougars! I’m excited to announce that these as well as other player portraits are available for sale on my website!! Click here to see the galleries!

I first told you about Op Camp Como in April when we had the training retreat for the counselors. This past week we finally got to live the dream! This is the third year we took about 80 elementary kids from the Como neighborhood in Fort Worth, Texas to a week long faith-based camp at no charge to the campers’ families. It is always an incredibly powerful week and this year proved no different! God always assembles His very best among the camp staff and counselors. I am always so humbled to work shoulder to shoulder with some of the greatest people on the planet! I quickly chose just a few of the thousands of photos I took last week to tell some of the story!

First, a funny story. (Well, kind of!) My husband Van directs this camp and was the director of the same camp out of Midland, Texas for seven years, but this was a first! During the traditional “keep-away” game in the pool, he caught the back of Mr. Wes’s head in his eye. He had a fairly innocent looking, but very deep split near his brow bone.

Thank goodness for Dr. Brown who was there to stitch him up! (The color has been removed from this photo to protect the squeamish - and yes, I videoed it too!!)

This is what that “innocent” looking injury looked like 2 days later! Carolyn Street, the business manager at the campgrounds took this shot!

Here’s Cody doing his Mr. Gravitt impression!

This is Tyler, who prefers to be referred to as the best intern ever, as they all do! He was definitely the best intern this year! He pretty much had a new hairstyle every day! It started out like this, turned into a mohawk, and eventually he was bald.

Here are Van and I with our boys, Josh and Joe Norman! They were campers back in the early 90s at the Midland Opportunity Camp and still come back every year to help us out. We’ve had the honor of watching them grow up and they are family to us. BTW, today is Josh’s 28th birthday! Happy Birthday, Baby! We are so proud of both of them! Josh played football and was a National Champion at OU and went on to play for the San Diego Chargers, New York Jets and Oakland Raiders. He is now CEO of The Truth Records and JLee Productions. Joe was the Texas Defensive Player of the Year his senior year at Midland Lee High School, played at Texas Tech, and was in the movies “Friday Night Lights”, “We are Marshall”, and “Invincible” as a football player. He is working in the oil business now. Just a little Mama-braggin!

Josh ran a little football mini-camp for the boys at recreation time one day! Pretty cool to have a former NFL player showing you how it’s done! Byron, the boy in the blue shirt, is a Hurricane Katrina survivor. His brother was a counselor for us this year and did an incredible job! We are so thankful God moved them to Fort Worth!

We also had His Son (a.k.a. Vince Carter, former OU center who graduated in 2004 and was drafted in 2005) perform. The kids loved him!

A couple of my favorite shots:

There are no smiles like Opportunity Camp smiles!

Probably the best shot of the week was this one taken by my friend Anda! You can tell we had quite a bit of hair cutting going on in the boys’ cabins!

And of course there is video!


Op Camp Como 08A from Gravitt Productions on Vimeo.


Op Camp Como B from Gravitt Productions on Vimeo.


Op Camp Como 08C from Gravitt Productions on Vimeo.


Op Camp Como 08D from Gravitt Productions on Vimeo.


Op Camp Como 08E from Gravitt Productions on Vimeo.

Tags: Opportunity Camp Como, NFL, Hurricane Katrina, His Son

Here she is with big sis Callie and big bro Jackson! This is the announcement for the church website and the bulletin.

I got to watch Laedin last night during church! And what’s a little babystiing without pictures? Look how much she has already grown since May 31! I am headed out to Elijah’s swim lessons and then to photograph Alyssa, the newest baby at church born last weekend! Check back to get a first peek at her!

I am working on Brian and Julie's highlight video for their reception tomorrow night. They married in South Lake Tahoe, which was completely amazing! You might recognize them from their engagement photos. Here are a few photos I snapped and I will get their highlight video up after the reception!

After the wedding, we took a two hour dinner cruise on the Bleu Wave. Talk about gorgeous views! We had a fun time celebrating the brand new Mr. and Mrs. Ponder! I sneaked into the cabin (I think that's what you call it!) and caught this quiet moment between the two of them.

Both families were so sweet! I just loved Brian's grandmother. I took this photo through some pretty misty eyes right after she told Brian how proud her grandfather would have been of him! She had us all in tears. It was such a sweet moment.

There was an amazing lightning storm in Midland, TX the night of Tim and Jordan's rehearsal dinner. I got this shot from the infamous duck pond on the way to Jordan's lingerie shower - which was too much fun! BTW, I love to know who is visiting my blog! Please leave me a comment below the picture! Thanks!

I posted a few weeks ago about all the pregnant people at our church. Well, four of those sweet babies are here now! I visited them and their parents in the hospital to take photos for our church's website. They are too cute not to share! Laedin made her entrance first about a month ago. Rhett and Triton are twin boys that were born healthy and happy! About 36 hours later, Miller decided it was time to come join the fun!

And speaking of twins, I reconnected with my favorite ones from my days at ACU, Randy and Donny Vaughn! I was excited to learn that Randy and his family are back in the US from their time as missionaries in Africa, and Donny made a career change so the brothers could fulfill one of their lifelong dreams to own a business together. They are both incredibly creative, resourceful, passionate, and hardworking! They are in the DFW area and their marketing coach company is called 1429 Creative. They also have a very helpful blog at www.marketingtwins.com. Check them out!

I've recently done a couple of shoots out at DFW for a company called IAS Air. It was so much fun! They needed photos and video for presentations and their website. I love my job! Here are a couple of photos:

I filmed Tim and Jordan's wedding in Midland, and grabbed a few shots for custom DVD artwork! The photographer was the wonderful Katherine Curry. I wanted to share this photo I snapped of the gorgeous bride! Look for the trailer coming soon!

I apologize for not posting for such a long time! May is always a busy time in the event video world and I produced my fair share of programs and graduations! I also got to photograph some seniors, and shot two weddings - one in South Lake Tahoe and one in Midland, Texas. I also did some commercial photography out at DFW and just got back from a video/photo shoot of a calf roping instructor! Whew! For today, here are some of my favorite shots from some of my favorite seniors!

I am working on the video for the seniors at my church. We had an AMAZING shoot that was so much fun! Thanks guys for a great time! Here are some pics, and look for the video after Senior Sunday!!

I got to hang out with Julie and Brian for a great engagement photo shoot last week! I also get to do some video and photography work on their wedding weekend in South Lake Tahoe in a couple of weeks! They are such a sweet couple and really into each other! I can't wait for the wedding!

Meet David, a senior at Weatherford High School! He's a great guy with a bright future!

Sooo, Op Camp (www.opcamp.com) is this cool ministry that my husband has been involved in since he was in high school and I happily married into it. It's a faith-based free camp for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade underprivileged kids from Midland and the Lake Como community in Fort Worth. The unique thing about it is that the counselors are high school and college aged kids and there is a 2:1 camper to counselor ratio. After camp, the counselors and campers get together at least once a month and develop a really powerful mentor/friendship relationship. Character traits are reinforced, and the counselors become role models for them. We had the counselor training retreat last weekend at Camp Butman, the campsite. It's really intense and the kids always amaze us with their commitment and love for the ministry!

I love this pic! Matt is a former-camper-turned-counslelor from Midland and Dynecia is a counselor from Fort Worth.


Claire and Kayte - another Midland-Fort Worth friendship!

It's an amazing ministry! I'm off to the counselor training retreat, and I will give you more details and pictures from this weekend! In the meantime, check them out at www.opcamp.com

NO!! Not me! Just six beautiful ladies I happen to go to church with! What's amazing is their due dates are all within about 8 weeks of each other! One of them is expecting twins, but you would probably never guess which one! Looks like the local hospital is going to have a pretty busy summer!

My sister Candice got married on March 15. What a fun week we had! I was honored to be her bridesmaid, videographer, and, because I couldn't help myself, I also took a lot of pictures! She had a great photographer named Brian O'Neill (http://pnaproductions.shutterfly.com/action/). Since it's been a blog desert for me the last few weeks as we have been travelling and I have been working away editing and getting out weddings, I thought I would give you something to look at!

Cassi in her boots at the rehearsal.


College Roomies: Candice, Cassi, Val, Chelsea



Twins and Hubbies! Matt, Candice, Cassi, Nick









Love those eyes!


Me and the beautiful bride!

What a fun, busy weekend we had! The Weatherford Christian School Auction was Saturday night at Canyon West and it was a huge success! They hired Ross Bandy Auctioneers and they did an incredible job! If you have an auction coming up, you have to get these guys! Ross and his Wranglers were very professional and entertaining They made it a lot of fun for people to part with their money! It was also great to have most of Van's family here.

We had a great turnout! I love Weatherford! Cowboys and Cowgirls everywhere! There were very talented artisans in the audience who donated handcrafted, one of a kind items. There is always such a great variety of items to bid on!

Here's one of the wranglers with Van's sister and brother-in-law while they were bidding on Dallas Cowboy tickets! They didn't get them, but had a good time trying!

The very talented auctioneer, Ross Bandy.

Okay, I am really sad this is blurry! We haven't had a picture of us in a long time, guess we'll try again sometime! Anyway, this is what we look like when you're not wearing your glasses.

Sunday afternoon I went to a baby shower for our friends Stacey and Shane. Wow! They got a ton of stuff! I love little girl things and all the pink - probably because there is none of it in my house with all my boys! Stacey was glowing and beautiful as always, and Shane looked a little overwhelmed! Here are the pics!

The food was as tasty as it was beautiful! I was blown away by Jan's baking skills!


The happy little family and Stacey's sister!


They are probably going to have to add on a wing to get all this stuff in their house! What a blessed little girl!

Check this out!!

My sister Candice and her fiance' Matt are getting married on March 15! Enjoy their engagement shoot movie!

My four year old has decided to take up skateboarding! Yikes! I ran for his helmet and my camera yesterday and we had a lot of fun, although the session quickly came indoors. I guess the hallway seems a lot safer for someone just learning to balance! I just love little boys! Every day is a new adventure! I never know if I will be playing with a Power Ranger, Spiderman (or Peter Parker donning his sport coat over his costume!), Superman, Batman or a Jedi! Or maybe all of the above. Yea for little boys!

I also added a "Wedding Film" page for you to view samples from weddings I have filmed. I posted Gaylen and Nicholas' Highlight today and hope to get her sister, Ginna, up tomorrow. It was the most incredible day! A set of identical twin sisters married identical twin brothers! I have never, and probably will never again, see anything like it! I will write more about it coming up in the next few days as I finish production on these amazing weddings! In the meantime, be sure to check out Gaylen and Nicholas' highlight!

Some very dear friends of ours had their sixth baby a couple of weeks ago! He is absolutely perfect. I love new babies. Every one of them is such a miracle! It's hard to believe my own three boys have grown so much - it REALLY does seem like yesterday since I was in the hospital with each of them! God bless mothers and babies everywhere! (Dads too!)

Last Sunday officially marked the end of football season, always a depressing day for me. So I am sharing my football love with some photos I took this past season of the Abilene Cooper Cougars. I did their highlight video and made all but one of their games. It was so fun hanging out with them! You can check out some of the videos by clicking on "Football Films" at the top of the page. I am actually working on wedding videos today - more about that later - but here's some Cougar Love!

So, I've been a little sick the last couple of days, but still managed to work on some things - including more pics of Keeley! I loved these extreme closeups. She has the most gorgeous eyes! More to come...

Exciting News-- New website on the way!
Until then, I figured I would go ahead and start blogging! This weekend, a dear friend came into town and wanted me to take some photos of her 15 year old daughter before she cut off all her hair to donate to Locks of Love. I have always thought that was the coolest organization and had major respect for the people who donate, I had just never met anyone who had - until now! Keeley was awesome and made my job so easy! I am going to be working on a few of her pics between editing weddings and I will do my best to blog about both. Here are a few previews of the beautiful Keeley that we shot at nighttime!