Spent some time with friends down in Hobbs and Las Cruces for a wedding over the weekend.  Had tons of fun hanging out and making new friends, not to mention that this was the furthest south that I had ever been.  Previous to this, it was Charlotte, North Carolina for job related work.

Day 1 – Wednesday, November 21

Got off of work in the morning and started making final preparations to head down to Hobbs, NM, where Jonathan’s parent’s stay.  From there, we’ll be going on to Las Cruces on Friday.   Since I work night shift, and I had to make some final preps before leaving as far as camera equipment, and getting my hair cut, there wasn’t much time for sleep.  I figured I should be pretty good to go anyways.  Apparently, my common sense failed to realize the concept of a 14 hour drive.  I drove part of the way, but Jonathan took the majority on the way down.  Tried to get some sleep, but apparently, I don’t sleep to well in a moving car, even when a blanket and a pillow are involved.   We eventually arrive in Hobbs around 5:30 in the morning.  My mind was pretty much in a zombie state at that point.  There were a few times that I blanked out for a short while when trying to sleep, but not enough to get any full REM cycles in.

There was a moment that I thought was pretty heartwarming when we got in Hobbs.  Me and Jonathan crawled into the beds in the boys room as soon as we got there.  I took one of the unoccupied beds and Jonathan just crawled into bed next to his son.  His son, not knowing if this was his Grandpa or someone else, couldn’t recognize Jonathan in the dark, not to mention being suddenly awakened at 5:30ish in the morning.  So how does he recognize his father?  He ends up sniffing him, and recognizing his father’s scent, gives him a big welcome home hug.  I say it’s moments like this that cancel out all the diaper changes and broken items around the house.  When I have children, I hope they can recognize me by my scent.  But hopefully, it’s not a stench.

Thursday

Thursday is kind of a chill day.  Woke up in the morning to the smell of some Ox Tail soup, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  Except I think it’s cow tail.  I initially thought it was the smell of the town since Jonathan mentioned that the town had a distinct smell due to the oil pumps strewn about the town.  So yea, starting off, it doesn’t have the greatest of smells, but later on, it gets good.  I wasn’t too keen at first on eating soup with cow tails in it, but after trying it out, I quickly went for a second bowl without hesitation.

By midday, Jonathan’s other two sons had joined us, and I had quite a bit of fun harassing his twin boys from time to time.  Other than helping for a bit in his parent’s cleaning business, Thursday was pretty much a chill day.  Got plenty of time to get some rest as well.

Friday

Early in the morning, we head out for Las Cruces.  The trip took around 5 – 6 hours with the various stops that we took during the trip, including taking some time to get some good shots of some snow covered cactuses on the mountain as well as a slight detour to a town slightly off the beaten path to get a stranded lady back home. Got a few decent shots, but there were some absolutely GOERGOUS shots that I decided to pass up on due to time restraints.  Kicking myself at the moment for missing the clouds flowing through a gap in the mountains as if they were water flowing through rocks in the stream.  Very beautiful indeed.   But I definitely didn’t want to hold up the trip to Las Cruces for everyone else, so I decided to pass. 

Note to self: Get an extra rental car and leave early

We finally arrived in Las Cruces and stopped to get a bite eat.   One of the things that I noticed off the bat is that the majority of the people there were hispanic, which didn’t bother me, because I got a soft spot for the latina’s hehe.   It was surprising to see Palm trees for the first time in my life.   I typically only thought that you saw them in either California, or Florida, but even though it was cold here, apparently, it’s not too cold for the Palm trees.   After eating we chilled for a short while with some relatives of Jonathan’s and then headed to the location where the wedding and reception were going to be taking place.

Some of the key things that I picked up on about this place were that the ceilings were tall, painted black, and the walls were covered in a black tarp.   To non photographers, it’s not a big deal, but for a photographer, the high celing means that he can’t effectively bounce his flash for the lighting and and the black paint and tarp will absorb more light than they reflect.   And on top of that, the lighting was pretty low, so I had my work cut out for me.  And quite frankly, I wasn’t sure on how I was going to approach it as far as shooting.  So I figured I would get some test shots and some light readings on meditate overnight on how I was going to resolve the lighting issue.  We headed back to the hotel and checked in.

Saturday

Woke up, had some breakfast, and while doing that, texted the bride to see where she was at so I can plan some time to get the formals and behind the scene shots done.   She and the bridesmaids were getting their hair done an hour away in El Paso and it just happened to start snowing there, causing several roads to be closed out.   At that point, I was quite sure that plans to get started on the formals around 1:00 weren’t going to happen.   That caused me to sweat quite a bit and try to figure out what I’ll do in the meantime to pass the time and prep for the wedding, so I decided to head back to the hotel room and make sure that the camera’s were prepped and ready to go.   The last thing I need is to be in the middle of a wedding and run out of space on the memory cards or get a dead battery in the middle of the ceremony.

After a short while, the bride was back in town and starting to get prepped.  Although things were running behind schedule.   By the time she was dressed and ready to go, we only had 45-50 minutes until the wedding was ready to start.  with travel time, that only left me 30 minutes to do the formals and I haven’t even seen the place that we were going to do the formals yet.   That was a mistake on my part.   I should have checked that out the previous night or just borrowed the car and checked it out in the morning.  Lesson learned.  I was only able to get off a handful of posed shots before we had to rush out to make it to the wedding on time.

Note to self: Become MUCH more bossy and affirmative when shooting weddings and events.

For the wedding itself, I was able to get off quite a few shots.   And since I knew everyone there, I felt a bit more comfortable with moving around during the ceremony to get shots.  Hopefully, my flash wasn’t causing too much of a distraction during the ceremony.   During the reception, I fired off even more shots, hoping to get a higher count of good photos with the higher shoot rate due to the lights being turned down for the dancing.   By the time the ceremony and reception were done, my back was in a good amount of pain.

We retired back to the hotel later on where I indulged in some beer, pizza and hot wings.  I’m quite sure that I exceeded my suggested calorie count for the day with the wings that I ate, but man, those things were absolutely delicious.  Some sort of parmesian flavored wings.   I forgot the name of the place that made them, but next time I head down south, I’ll have to put that place on the list of places to stop.

I was sharing a room with Jonathan and his boys in Las Cruces and in the previous night, him and the 3 boys shared a bed, so I got lucky with having a bed to myself, but this night, I wouldn’t be so lucky.   With the youngest being with the grandparents, the other two were with us.  One in Jonathan’s bed and the other in mine.   Little did I know that these boys were the best bed hogs in the world.  My ex girlfriend has nothing on these boys when it comes to invading personal space.   There were times in which I would wake up just in time and see myself pushed to the edge of the bed, with only and inch to spare before falling to the floor below.   Fortunately, I made it through the night without injury.

Sunday

After breakfast, we got ready to head back to Hobbs.  Spent some more time with Jonathan’s family and said some final goodbye’s before we departed on the 5 hour trip back to Hobbs.   Even made good friends with the small canine member of their family who seemed to be particularly comfortable in my arms.   Yea, I admit, I do dig on animals.   Especially when they are quiet and not trying to lick youf face at every opportunity they get.

One the way back, I was able to fire off a few more shots of the mountains by basically holding the camera out the window and shooting blindly with the wide angle lens towards the mountains.  For the most part, the composition was off, obviously, but a few of them turned out pretty decent.   Not much color in some of the shots but still cool nonetheless.

When we got back to Hobbs, we helped out in the cleaning business some more and then chilled back at the house.  It was good to be able to sit down and chill for a while after spending so much time either on the road, or dealing with the wedding.   Time for a some beers, chicken, shower, and a good nights sleep.

Monday

Nothing much to mention except the looooong drive back to Kansas City.   Didn’t get back home until 9:45ish, and by that point, I was much more exhausted than I anticipated, so I had to take a day off of work.

I’m still feeling pretty drained even though it’s now Thursday.   Having 5 days off and actually being able to sleep during the evenings and then coming back home to a graveyard shift job really wreaks havok on the body.  Looks like I’ll be vegging a bit later on this week so the body can recover.