We don't often share personal stories, but sometimes life intersects with our profession in very emotional ways so we hope you will indulge us...

Shannon and I over recent years find ourselves really living the challenges we discuss with clients all the time.  You see, we are the only members of our family who live in San Antonio, so EVERY visit with family is an occasion for photographs.  Even then, life is so busy that it's incredibly hard for us to follow through and make sure those photos are displayable in our home.

Our granddaughter Jane and our daughter Jaime on their last visit.

We understand!

We were painfully reminded of the value of preserving a photographic record recently when my sister's basset hound Josie passed away.  She had Josie for years; before we both left New Orleans after hurricane Katrina.  As you may guess, I take the role of the family photographer, (surprise!), but again, I hadn't seen my sister since her wedding some years ago and none of us had thought at that time to put Josie in the wedding photos.  Such a small thing, right?

And then it happened, and all she had was a few casual cellphone pics...

Josie was her child almost as much as my niece is I feel and she came to me with some of the cellphone pics and asking me if there was anything I could do to create a print to preserve Josie's memory.  This isn't the first time this has happened of course, and over the years, I've come to feel it is the most important part of my profession - creating a milestone image to preserve a memory.    We take this very seriously.

This image was very small, but I was able to create a painting from it and eke out a small 8x10 so she would at least have something.  

A digital representation of the actual painting of Josie

We feel that portraits celebrate life, and we are so grateful when we are invited into your life to create an image that will preserve that celebration for generations!

Hayward