In early March I got an assignment to photograph famed Houston plastic surgeon, Dr. Joseph Agris. Agris is known for his charitable work all over the globe which is funded partially by his private practice here in Houston. We initially shot a few images of Dr. Agris at his Texas Med Center offices, but agreed that a trip to his home would be a better place for a portrait and boy were we right.

After arriving at the good doctor’s Bellaire home, I walked around a bit to try and find him. I saw an old Ford truck and someone who looked like a maintenance man shoveling manure out of the bed into planters. After getting a little closer I realized that the baggy jeans, ratty shirt and backwards cap belonged to Dr. Agris himself. The doctor gave us a whirlwind tour of his many animals which included mini horses, donkeys, swan, deer, and alpaca. I was in awe of the backyard and the fact that Dr. Agris does most of the work himself.

We moved into the house and were just as inspired. Just when you thought you could pick your jaw off the floor something else surprised you and dropped it once again.

“There are only 2 sets of those in the world….Vincente Fox owns the other set.” replied Agris as I closely marveled a towering pair of elegantly hand-carved ivory tusks.

Each room in the house was themed. During his travels Dr. Agris makes it a point to bring back hand-picked items of character from each place he visits. His dining room which took over a year to complete was painstakingly modeled after a famous ballroom at the Moscow ballet. From hand-painted gold leaf trim to custom archways and other relics, the home was awesome.

After the tour, with not much time left, we decided to shoot a few portraits in the Texas-themed room. Given Dr. Agris’ propensity to wear a cowboy hat, the room seemed appropriate. I was surprised when the Houston Chronicle ran the image of Dr. Agris and his alpaca, Felix, as the main art instead of the portrait you see above, but in the end, it grew on me. Other images of my visit with Dr. Agris are below as well as the clips of how they appeared in the newspaper.

…or possibly a human. This is Paula Ferguson of Colorado Springs on the scale some 10 months after she had bariatric surgery. In that 10 months Paula has lost a total of 160lbs which her dietitian Sharon Jacobs (right) explained to us was the average weight of adult women in the US. This was a follow up to a feature that followed Paula from before her surgery, post surgery and now. When the other photographers that had photographed her prior to dropping the weight saw this photo, they were shocked at the difference. This was an interesting story, however with Paula, Sharon, Sharon’s student assistant, our reporter and myself, we were crammed into Sharon’s office for the bulk of our time together. I really did not want to disrupt the flow of the visit so I stayed in my corner and made my images, as limited as I was. I knew that she was going to be weighed in another room and counted on that shot. As the visit progressed I saw that Paula was a very expressive person and when she got on the scale and heard the results, her expression came out.