Want to hear an objective account from Haiti’s disaster? Listen to a local photographer talk about his experience.

I won some tickets to Shearwater again. But I can’t go.

It’s almost the worst feeling ever.

The weekend began by me heading over to the house only known as Skanky Possum. Good friends, good music and a party led to me inevitably crashing at Caleb Miller’s after a late night Starseeds dinner. After waking up, Caleb and I parted ways and I we both later rendezvoused at Skanky where we took a bike ride with a bunch of friends. I was carrying my camera and as you may imagine, it did not go well. I nicked my hands, elbow, knee, shoulder and worst of all, my camera….

Worst feeling ever.

Anyways, here are a set of frames from the trip to Austin and a few from the finale in San Marcos.

I have been getting reacquainted with some of the folks down here and got invited to a wedding where I spent most of the time just hanging out with my old friends. Here are a few pictures from the reception, it felt odd with most of said friends being with their girlfriends and being the “extra wheel” but hey, I have my camera don’t I?

It was a fun wedding to attend, I was reminded of my younger years growing up in Rio Grande City, TX. Thanks for looking.

The bride and the groom walk onto the dance floor.
After the initial dance between the bride and the groom, the father of the groom dances with the bride.
The bride and the groom kiss, it was a moment that I am sure that the photographer pictured did not get, his flash went off too late.
A couple dances as the band plays a few songs before the toast.
Here, the bride dances with a man that paid to dance with her. It is customary to pay as it is looked on as a donation to the couple.
Another shot of the pay for dancing tradition.
The bride gets ready to toss the bouquet.
I don’t know what this is called but it is the male version of the tossing of the bouquet.

Another tradition where the groom gets tossed up, the bride watches and pleads the men to stop.

Yet another selection from the edits. This was shot while we waited for the fun bags to free up. I somewhat recall turning around after I photographed the fellow and noticing either Salinas, Moreno or Resurreccion giving me a weird look. I guess it was because I was photographing a random person without their consent but there was some interesting light falling on him so I just took the snapshot and moved on.

I considered cropping the lights out and I should have but I don’t want to rely on cropping my photos. I have to keep working on shooting with a stricter purpose and if I were back in that moment, I would have gotten closer to avoid those lights.

Thanks for lookin’ guys.

I started the journey from Victoria, TX on a Tuesday night, a two-hour drive to Austin, TX where friends already awaited me with open arms.

Two hours after beginning the drive and a speeding ticket later, I was at Hole in the Wall with some of the greatest people in the state of Texas. Caleb Miller, Thu Vo and Bobby Longoria were my welcome party and it sure was everything I wanted and expected. After a while we realized that there was a burlesque show going on inside so we picked up and headed in to check it out.

Lauren, pictured above, was my parter for the audience participation contest. I was egged on by someone Miller knew and whose name I forgot. Lauren and I ended up taking the contest and earning a pair of free drinks. The party then headed to Skanky Possum and from there on out, I headed back to my Austin hideout.

The next day was like any other really, I headed out to the career fair I drove in to attend, but there wasn’t much to check out. I bumped into a lot of colleagues and returned to the hideout to spend some time with Moreno, Resurreccion and Salinas. We hit up Pourhouse Pub for some Fun Bags and Moreno and I ended up rockin’ the house on a 5-0 streak.

Awesome thing about having friends like this? Resurreccion’s older brother, Joseph drove in from San Antonio just to hang out with me. God Bless you Joseph.

After that things were back to normal, but I couldn’t help but dread leaving again. I have such an unabated love for Austin, TX.

I departed Austin for San Antonio to visit my younger sibling Daniel, I discovered a few new things about him during my visit but the most important was that he turned into a pool shark. DO NOT PLAY AGAINST THIS KID UNLESS YOU ARE REALLY GOOD AT POOL. I REPEAT. DO NOT PLAY AGAINST THIS KID.

I spent the night at his apartment, got yet another ticket from the friendly folks at UTSA for parking violation despite being there during free parking and left the next morning back to Rio Grande City. And here I am now, waiting for work so if you have any, send it over my way.

So I am going to try to post as much as I can again, I need to get back on the blogging and get my work out there so visit my page often y’all!

This photo was from a Thanksgiving trip to South Padre Island, TX. Bobby Longoria, a good friend of mine walking up a dune that he later ended jumping off from.

5D Mark II
1/4000 sec
f/2.8
43mm
100 ISO

Eli Reed and Caleb Bryant Miller, originally uploaded by Erik Reyna.

Resigning the Texan might have been the best decision I have made in a while. Already feeling less-stressed, and given that SXSW is here, I can purge all those negative energies that I built up there.

This photo was taken at Starseed’s cafe at a hangout with Zuma and Tribune photographer Caleb Bryant Miller, Texan photographer Bruno Morlan and Magnum photographer Eli Reed.

And now for the techie-bit:
Nikon D300S
1/125 sec
AF Nikkor 50mm f/2.8
ISO 2500