Austin Bold Photography - First half of the 2019

Game time at the Circuit of the Americas

This has been a truly exciting spring (thus the lack of posts)! My photography has gone from a weekly exercise to often multiple times a week. And, as a result, my wife has gotten more-and-more frustrated by the number of nights that I spend away from the house :).

Marital problems aside (we’re fine, I think) it’s simultaneously super exciting, anxiety-inducing, and overwhelming balancing everything on top of everything else.

One of my favorite gigs has been partnering with the great folks at the Austin Bold, Austin’s first professional soccer team. The team competes in the USL Championship league. Though it’s technically “under” the MLS in the US professional soccer hierarchy, the soccer being played is ridiculously good. These dudes are no joke and they come from all around the world to play in this wild, fast, super technical league. I am in no way hawking The Bold just because I’ve been working with them, they’re friggin’ fun and the games are a blast.

In no particular order I’m posting some of my favorite images from this first half of the season. I also want to give a huge shout out to the team and players for being so kind to and generous with me, an unknown photographer dude that just started taking pictures and then kept taking pictures :). Here’s to an amazing second half of the year!

Isaac Promise is friggin’ fast!

Isaac and Sean McFarlane Jr. rocking per usual

Xavi Baez’s hair is always perfect and the dude is smooth as silk in midfield

The stadium is beautiful with awesome views of the farm land around it. Andm there’s tons of space for fans to chill and eat delicious fried food.

…and there’s tons of space for fans to scream and wave noisemakers

Marcelo with that 10 star smile

Jorge Troncoso putting in a shift

Rainy night at the Circuit of the Americas

Sean McFarlane Jr. getting a quick rest

Sean turning, and sprinting, and winning

André Lima lifting and Josué Soto getting lifted

Francis Atuahene with an insanely awesome strike into the top corner

Francis at your service

Sonny Guadarrama with a million dollar smile

Ryan Thompson and his awesome family!

Sean staying hydrated

Josué pre-match

The awesome Diego Restrepo basking in the sunset

This little girl was a rockstar!

André with another interesting celebration

<3

Xavi, Isaac, and André post goal

Another gorgeous night at COTA

All for one, one for all

Khalil Gibran - On Children

Maybe it’s the leaves dropping from the trees and the weather cooling down, or maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been listening to a lot of Buddhist philosophy talks, but I’ve been contemplating my mortality a lot lately and the legacy that I’m going to leave with my children.

I was listening to an interview on the Longform Podcast with Lisa Brennan-Jobs and she recalled a moment from her teenage years where her mom was screaming at a young Lisa in the car while slamming her hands on the dashboard. After reading Lisa’s book, and specifically the passage where Lisa recalled that event, her mom remembered that as she was yelling, crying, and punching the car, thinking that she knew Lisa would remember that moment forever.

At the baby shower for Hank, the namesake for this site, a close friend read the poem below and from then on it has struck me as truly prophetic. We may give our children our love, but not our thoughts. Our actions are our only possessions.

On Children
 Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, 
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends you with His might 
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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