My first-ever hard drive failure occurred five weeks ago. It came after more than 15 years of digital photography and, like death and taxes, I suppose it was inevitable. Unfortunately, the manner in which it failed meant that it cost me images from a week-long West Texas excursion that I can’t recover. I can re-visit and I can re-shoot but I won’t recover THOSE images.

So, $1,200 and five weeks and multiple missed-deadlines and lost-sales later, I’m left with a harsh lesson: Stuff breaks. More specifically, “Brand new, out-of-the-box G-Tech stuff breaks.”

Did I backup, you ask? Well, no, because I didn’t get the chance to backup. Like most traveling photographers, I carry a compact hard drive that I use to dump images until I’m back in the office and can transfer them to my studio RAID. I’ve used that drive for 18 months with no issues and, in fact, that drive performed perfectly. It was the brand-spanking-new 500 GB G-Tech drive that I transferred those images to that failed.

The back story: On returning from West Texas I purchased the new 500 GB drive because I wanted more traveling capacity and so I could give the 250 GB drive to my son who was returning to college at the end of the week. I transferred the images, 49 gigabytes, to the new drive, cleaned the 250 and handed it to my son.

When I arrived at the studio the next morning and attempted to transfer the images to the RAID, the transfer would time out and ultimately fail. I tried for several hours, ran disk warrior and cursed G-Tech before taking the drive to my local genius bar for a complete diagnostic. They hooked me up with a local data recovery company and a mere $400 and three weeks later, I had 49 gigs of mostly-corrupt, mostly-unusable images from out west.

Yesterday I returned the drive and exchanged it for a 500 GB LaCie. My G-Tech days are done. I’ve ceased cursing the name of the G-Tech CEO, whomever she or he might be. I’ve ceased kicking myself for not testing the new drive first and I’m now at peace with it.

But not really.

This comes, ironically, just three months after I worked as an assistant on a three-day advertising shoot for a colleague. I insisted that we back up everything on two hard drives in the field each day. She didn’t see the need but humored me and I slept soundly after each day’s shooting.

There’s another lesson in here and it has to do with redundancy and flawed processes and accountability. And as a sole-proprietor/owner-operator, I can tell you two things about my boss: He’s a prick and he’s fallible–but he’s infinitely smarter than he was five weeks ago and he’s now backing up on two hard drives in the field.

I made this image in my pasture Thursday, Feb. 11, at 11:30 p.m., while snow was still falling. I was struck by how much ambient light was reflected by the snow. The sky was completely overcast and save for the light above my barn door, off camera right, there was no light source nearby. My neighbor’s porch light is visible in the distance.

It was a 2.5-second exposure at f4, ISO 100.

I’ve spent a fair amount of time in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming and I’ve seen big snow, but never in my back pasture. The stillness was overwhelming–no cars on the streets, so it was silent all around. My part of Texas was sleeping under a 12-inch blanket of downy snow.

During my recent working trip to NYC I was, as always, fascinated its denizens. These are random glimpses of New Yorkers being New Yorkers–and they do it better than anyone else.

New York actor and playwright, Taylor Mac, is currently performing at the Undermain Theatre in Dallas and paused Monday to speak with Theater Jones critic, Mark Lowry. Taylor talks about his craft and his creative process in Lowry’s video interview.

Taylor’s a brilliant and thoughtful young actor who’s hands move constantly while he’s talking. I simply let him speak and the hands did the rest.

While working in NYC last month I had the opportunity to photograph Marfa NYC, a restaurant/bar inspired by Marfa, Texas. It’s located at 101 2nd Street, a few yards from 1st Avenue. Jesse and I were enroute to the Sunshine Cinema on Houston to see The Road and didn’t have time to stop. We paused long enough to peek through the window and make a photograph. I noticed the art on the back wall, barely visible in this image, and thought the cow skull painting looked familiar but I couldn’t place it.

Fast forward to January 6, last Wednesday, when I’m roughly 1,800 miles from Marfa NYC parked in front of Prada Marfa. It’s the sculpture installation created by artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset that sits on a lonely stretch of West Texas highway 90 just outside Valentine. It debuted in 2005 and has been baffling unsuspecting tourists for more than four years.

Despite the fact that it’s one of the most photographed curiosities in West Texas, I wanted images for my agency, ZumaPress, in L.A. I arrived at the site shortly after 4 p.m., and began shooting. Thirty minutes later a white Suburban rolled up, turned and backed up to the front door. A guy in a long black duster and black cowboy hat proceeded to pull out a ladder, unlock the door and go inside. I yelled at him from across the road, “I’ve been waiting here for a week, I thought you guys were never gonna open.” He’d probably heard that same lame-assed line a million times before but he chuckled and shouted, “We never open.”

I crossed the road and introduced myself while he fiddled with one of the dead flourescent ballasts in the ceiling. He told me his name was Boyd Elder and said, “I grew up here and I maintain this piece for the artists.” Boyd and I chatted and I asked him what he did for a living, “I’m an artist, I’ve been making art since I was five, he said.”

He was waiting on an electrician to show up to repair the faulty light and it gave us an opportunity to talk and get acquainted over a pair of frosty Shiners from my ice chest. I noticed Boyd was down to the end of a cigar and asked him if he’d like to try one of mine. We shared a couple of Casa Magnas while Boyd talked about his art and growing up in far west Texas. During that conversation we learned that we had a bunch of mutual friends in the area, Bob and Christi Dillard, owners of the Ft. Davis Mountain Dispatch, Roy Hamric, writer, photographer, university professor now in Thailand and Blair Pittman, in Terlingua, author and former National Geographic photographer. I learned that Boyd had worked closely with The Eagles in the 70s and was responsible for a lot of their album cover art. He mentioned a new restaurant/bar in New York’s East Village and that he had paintings hanging in that establishment. “I was there just two weeks ago and I photographed it,” I told him.

It was Boyd’s paintings I’d seen hanging on the back wall of the restaurant. They’re barely visible in the image I’ve posted here. I promised Boyd I’d email him the photo when I got wherever I was going to sleep that night.

The electrician didn’t show and Boyd had work to do, so I told him I’d planned to shoot after dark and I’d call him if the electrician turned up. Two hours later Boyd called me from his ranch house and asked about the electrician. I told him the only person I’d seen was a beautiful costume designer from NYC who’d stopped to photograph the sculpture.

Boyd asked me how I felt about homemade chile rellenos and I asked him for directions. The rellenos (in Shiner beer batter perfected by Miss Rita) were fabulous as was the company, the cigars, the Aberlour 16, the Shiners and the music.

I ended up bunking at Boyd’s and can’t wait to get back. I’m mailing him an 11×14 print of the Marfa NYC image and a handful of cigars.

McDonald Observatory, located a few miles northwest of Fort Davis, Texas, threw a star party Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2009, evening and despite the sub-freezing temperatures, more than a dozen visitors got to gaze at the stars outside the visitor center from 6,300 ft. above sea level.

The Observatory offers star parties every Tuesday, Friday and Saturday evenings.

I recently photographed singing sensation, Stephanie Umoh, outside the Neil Simon Theatre on 52nd Street in NYC.

Umoh is a Lewisville High School graduate who, just two years out of the Boston Conservatory, is cast as Sarah in the current revival of “Ragtime.” Watch for the upcoming story and profile of Umoh at www.theaterjones.com.

Cuban-born composer and librettist, Jorge Martin, will debut his adaptation of Reinaldo Arenas’ “Before Night Falls” with the Fort Worth Opera this May. Stay tuned to www.theaterjones.com for the upcoming interview and profile.

I met and photographed Jorge at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in mid-November. It was critical, to me, that Jorge’s portrait be associated with Fort Worth. The Modern’s three pavilions provided the perfect iconic background for the shot.

Me and the lovely Jocelyn were making our way to Kasia’s Restaurant for brunch when we were overtaken by hundreds of Santas moving north down Driggs Ave. Like lemmings marching toward the sea, these Santas were on a mission, they had a destination and we fell in with them.

We learned that this was a gathering point for the 2009 NYC Santacon, Brooklyn edition. There are five gathering points for Gotham Santas and they’ll converge at one location later today, but it’s secret.

We continued along Driggs where we were met by converging Santas approaching from east and west. We passed McCarren Park and ended up at the Warsaw Polish National Home in Greenpoint at 261 Driggs Ave., where the Santas filed inside to get their secret marching/crawling orders. Since we weren’t Santas, we weren’t allowed inside.

We departed for Kasia’s only to learn that it’s closed on Saturdays??? So, down the block to Bagelsmith for fresh, custom-made bagels and hot coffee.

Paul Baker, 98, director, educator and author, died yesterday at his home near Waelder in the Texas Hill Country. Paul was the founder of the Dallas Theater Center and Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Mark Lowry at TheaterJones.com has written an excellent obituary. He’s also providing a space for friends of Paul to post tributes.

On May 11, of this year I photographed Paul and his family at his ranch in the Texas Hill Country. Those images are part of a slideshow at TheaterJones.com. At 98, Paul was still quite alert and eager to discuss theater and the arts. Mark and I spent several hours with the Bakers; Kitty his wife, and his daughter, Robyn Baker Flatt, founder of the Dallas Children’s Theater.

Paul was delighted to hear that both my sons were graduates of Booker T., 2000 and 2007, and wanted to know everything about them and their careers in the arts. Clearly, Booker T., was one of his greatest passions.