Ingalls Photography Workshop {Texas}

Anna and I at the Houston space center. My wife loves playing the tourist!

What a fun week it has been! We are flying home from Texas today (written Sunday); glad to head home, but sad to leave so many new friendships. Eli and Mandy were amazing hosts! They have an espresso machine and made us vanilla lattes first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Thank you guys for introducing me to my new addiction!

Eli and Mandy are missionaries that we support all the way out in the heartland. It turns out that a large majority of their students are photo majors and have been actively following my work. We have been planning on visiting them for some time and news about my Texan fan base really pushed us over the edge. The next thing I know Eli has me lined up for a full-on 3 day photography workshop! I spoke to a couple hundred students on Thursday night at their weekly Chi Alpha meeting.

Friday night we had about 25 photo-majors come to the house for desert, vanilla lattes, and more about my story and dream. It was a great time for me to go into depth about how God led me into starting a photography business when all along I thought I was supposed to be in the ministry. I shared about how wrong I was to think I could only serve God by working for the church or out in the missions field. I have been given an amazing gift and also a responsibility to share Love with people all around me and now I have the exciting privilege of doing it through my photography.

We had a great time of questions and answers. It turns out that while Sam Houston State University has a great fine art photography program it lacks classes on more practical business application. I was so happy to share all that I have learned about starting, running and maintaining a successful business over the past five years. It was really refreshing for me to share my passion and have people who were eager to listen and so grateful to boot!


Saturday morning I gave a hands on demonstration of a typical Cameron Ingalls style engagement shoot. I shared the strategies and methods that I have developed to get unique full of life pictures of people before their big day. I emphasized the importance of relationship building and getting over the awkwardness of client vs. the photographer. We walked down the street with Jake and Courtney and let the cameras rip. I was confused why the students were leery to trespass in front of what looked like an abandoned brick building. Eli told me later it is because even though Texans don’t have fences they can legally shoot trespassers on site, no questions. Texas is truly the Lone Star State! Luckily enough, no one got shot but Jake and Courtney. ;) We broke for lunch and met back up so that I could demonstrate image editing using Adobe Lightroom.

I have never done a typical workshop like this so I just kept everything simple and shared what I know and love about photography. I had a great response from the students. Hopefully they went away challenged and excited to share the Love with people around them by simply using their gifts and talents to their fullest potential.

Here are a few that some of the students shared with me.

Evan Kahlich


James Corona


Chris Jackson


Samuel Isenhower
I will post Jake and Courtneys engagement session next. These guys did great considering they are not models and that they had almost 30 photographers following them around!