Eric Hegwer is an Austin Wedding Photographer

Eric Hegwer is an Austin Wedding Photographer

Hi, I’m Eric. This is my blog. I’m married to Jenn, the love of my life. As of right now we don’t have any kids We are DINKS, – Dual Income, No KidS.  I live in the capitol of Texas, and have an Austin Wedding Photography Business.

I work as a traveling wedding photographer. Previously I worked as a biochemist at a think tank in the Silicon Valley during the dot com boom. And it was a strange journey to get to that point. This website tells that story.

I grew up in the 70′s and 80′s in a strange time before computers, cell phones, and Tivo. Days consisted of school, playing outside with my friends until it was dark, then homework after dinner.    If it was the weekend and it wasn’t raining, my brother and I were shooed outside as soon as our chores were done, unless there was a Bar Mitzvah to attend, in which the order was chores, Temple, and then play. Summers were spent in the back of a station wagon as my dad drove us to every national park, large and small west of the Mississippi. I haven’t been to Disneyland Since Passover 1978.

I have an uncanny ability to remember most details of my early childhood life mundane or significant:

• After the first day of kindergarden, I came home and when my mom asked what I learned, I exclaimed: “Today I learned how to read!”
• In First grade, I was the best reader in my class – according to the multi-colored aluminum sticker stars on the board which counted all the different books I had mastered.
• In 3rd grade, I memorized my times tables to 18, and could do 100 multiple choice questions in 60 seconds perfectly, faster than 1 per second. Since then I have forgotten how to do math.
• In 5th grade I had a bicycle and a paper route, between my two best friends and myself, we knew every single house, the owner’s name, their dogs, and where they wanted their newspaper delivered. And all those people knew my parents.
• By the 7th grade, I had been labeled a nerd, and it stuck for the next 5 years. My big nose, lanky body, and bar-mitzvah didn’t help my condition.
• I barely graduated high school thanks to my English teacher Mrs. Babczak who failed me for not completing assignments.  You see, I’d already read all those books in elementary school, why did I need to re-read them again as a Sophomore?
• At 18, after just barely graduating High School, I took a year off and spent it in Israel as part of Project Otzma. I lived on a Kibbutz, mastered the Hebrew language, listened to a lot of Phish, and drank some really bad beer.

When I got back to the states in 1990, I went rock climbing for 3 years. When the sporting goods store that I worked for laid me off, I had zero options. Tail between my legs, I went back to my parents and they gave me two options: get another job and live at home, or go back to school and they would help me out. So I started junior college. My first semester I took English, History, Science, and Math (where I met Jenn that very first day).

After college, I got a job as a biochemist in the metabolism group at a very well respected company in Menlo Park, California (just north of Palo Alto). I Worked on projects like optimizing the triple drug cocktail for HIV (ATC, 3TC, & DDI), determining the efficacy of Anthrax vaccines, and I even collected a few patents for helping to invent a machine that removes cholesterol from the blood in a process like dialysis.

Every year, Jenn and I would take our 3-weeks of vacation and travel to Paris, or Rome, or Havana. I’d take pictures. After some lucky breaks, I began to shoot weddings, and in 2006 I quit my job as a biochemist, started my business as a full-time wedding photographer, and moved to Texas.

Now I photograph 30 weddings a year, all over the world. This website showcases my wedding photography work (with some funny wedding stories), as well as talks about my current and previous life.

I love to stream techno from Europe, Nap,  walk my Westie, do repairs around the houe, travel, and take pictures at weddings. 87% of my time awake is spent on-line.