Eventful few weeks! Most importantly, congrats to good friends Michael & Stephanie and also to Doug & Tiffany … both couples had babies since last I’ve written. (Above is my little nephew Branson, who I just happened to be taking pictures of today.)

I also re-met one of my step-dad Ralph’s former 4th grade students … an interesting meeting, to say the least. At the same time, I commemorate the loss of my father 4 years ago today, as well as my grandmother’s birthday (who is also recently gone). The cycle continues on…

(Note that in the photo above, although it looks like I photoshopped his eyes brighter, that’s how they looked … it’s not edited other than making it a touch brighter.)

At least between all the “pondering of life” I had some fun … a great dinner with friends on Friday, wine tasting in Temecula, the community Art Walk (which has to be one of the most fun things!), brunch with mom, and today a photoshoot with the beautiful Natela:

And for some reason, I have a feeling that this will quite the memorable week… more on that later.

I had the pleasure of working with the enchanting Jon Mack yesterday. This was my first shoot at the new loft, and I was a little apprehensive that the place would work out right … that the weather would cooperate … that the hair & makeup would go okay.

As always, everything turned out great … better than I could have expected, really. I thought things were heading downhill as we approached the sculpture in the photo above, as the ‘junkyard owner’ came over and began to let us know how disrespectful we were being. Turns out, the guy is an artist himself, and was cool. (And obviously we got the shot.)

I was also concerned about hair and makeup. My sister came to the rescue on hair, though, and did a great job … and a new MUA (that’s “makeup artist” for you non-industry types) was fantastic, too … so it all pulled together.

Top it all off with an Art Walk in the Lofts here (meaning more like ‘community party’) and things don’t get much better than that …