Jacksonville Florida Wedding, Portrait, and Music Industry Photographer » Tag Children

Russell Family

Thomas Lester — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 14:56:13 +0000

I love being trusted by a family to capture the milestones in their life. This image is from our third session with the Russell family over the last couple of years. It’s awesome to see their cute little boy grow up. They are a beautiful family!

And here’s the final product. Printed deep matte and mounted in a custom archival framed. It’s gorgeous!

Forsaken Generation’s Holiday of Hope

Thomas Lester — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 14:33:33 +0000

‘Tis the season for giving and Forsaken Generation has committed to feeding and loving the homeless children of Jacksonville through events like “Holiday of Hope”. It was such an honor and blessing to be asked to photograph this amazing event. The whole family got involved. I took pictures while Brian, Rachel, and Heather loved on the kids and helped them pick out Christmas toys.

This time of year, when we are bombarded with advertisements of the latest greatest thing we need to have to keep up with the neighbors. Sometimes, we need a remind of how blessed we are to have a warm place to lay our head at the end of the day. Thank you Forsaken Generation for all that you do!

We Are Going to Ireland!

Thomas Lester — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:21:34 +0000

In a complete step of faith, we have decided to join the Celebration Church Mission’s Ireland team to launch a Celebration church campus in Northern Ireland. They needed skill sets that our whole family has, so we have decided to do that as a family. I’m going to train up the audio team and coach the band (depending on how many players they gather up between now and then… I may also play guitar for their first service). My son, Brian, plays drums for our home campus worship band, so he’ll also be working with the band and help with audio. My wife Heather was the Children’s director for our campus for many years, so she’ll be teaching the children’s ministry team. My daughter, Rachel, will be assisting with the children’s team. Of course, I’ll also be making a lot of images while I’m there to document the launch.

We need everyone’s help to make this happen. This is an expensive trip. Our Missions leadership has done a lot of work to save us money, like finding a youth organization that has dorm style housing for lodging and meals… but we’ll still need to raise about $9,000 for the trip. We are still getting final numbers, but that’s a worst case number to start with. We already paid our deposit, but we have a large first round of money due the first week of June ($4,000). So, I’m working on putting everything in place for people to easily make donations. Of course, all donations are tax deductible.

What are our next steps? I’m glad you asked I’m in the process of setting up a website to track our progress. We will be looking for donations and we are brain storming about other fundraising ideas. I may be auctioning off some fine art prints and Heather has a few ideas as well. I’ll be blogging often about the progress, what we are doing, and of course… the trip itself. Look back here often for more info. I’ll be posting details on how you can donate very soon.

Here’s my crew (the family):

Jones Family Portraits – St. Simons Island

Thomas Lester — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 16:37:52 +0000

The Jones Family were vacationing from Ohio on St. Simons Island, GA. I came up and met them at the famous “Avenue of the Oaks”, which is a beautiful street lined with gorgeous oak trees providing a canopy over the road. The weather was warm, but with a nice cool breeze. Perfect! They are a gorgeous family with super cute kids. I had a great time.