600 sq mi: Covered

We're still reeling from the success of our first annual Houstonist photo show opening. Can ya blame us? Just look at the evidence! It's no surprise that an event filled with such wonderful photographers produced such wonderful pics — please continue to upload yours to the Houstonist flickr group, and remember to tag with "600sqmi" and "houstonist."

Of course this exhibit and opening didn't just appear out of thin air (geez, wouldn't that have been nice?). Lots of hard work and planning went into making it such a success, and we'd like to thank a handful of special people who made us look good made it all possible.

Many thanks go out to Jeff Balke, Laurie Ballesteros, Katya Horner, Elaine Mesker-Garcia and Houstonist Eric Sauseda for providing us with the expertise knowledge that it takes to put on a show like this. If it weren't for these talented and creative people, we're not such we would have had any idea what we were doing. For serious. And for that, we are forever indebted to them.

Also, thanks to the dynamic, colorful, generous and helpful Yolanta Thompson from Yol Art (801 Studewood St.) for offering her expertise on art framing and her generosity to all the photographers. For without her, we'd just have a bunch of photos lying around, and that's not cool. Please visit her for all your framing needs ... or just visit her. She's one heckuva lady.

A hearty "thank you!" to the wonderful caterers who provided all the yummy bites for the night: Claire Smith from Shade (250 W. 19th St.), for her delish and creative cuisine; Lewis Nuzzie of Moonson Wok & Lounge (1200 McKinney Ave.) who not only supplied the party with endless, delicious hors d'oeuvres, but also hung with us all night long; and lastly, to the tremendously generous Kim Park and Molina's Cantina (4720 Washington Ave.), who always amaze us with their inventive Mexican creations — they're truly a hometown business that's always giving back to the city.

And, of course, there was the sleeper of the night: the "Sangria Sans Shoes" painstakingly made with delicious Barefoot Shiraz. Whoa, that snuck up on us! If you were one of the lucky ones who got out with your shoes intact, we'd love to know your secret. We're still looking for our left Manolo Blahnik. (Hey, that's like $175!) But the Barefoot Bubbly helped us cope with the loss. Thank you, Barefoot Wine, for making the night warm and fuzzy for us. It's always more fun Barefoot.

Other thank yous are in order to Patrick Kwiatkowski of Microcinema, Philip Beck and Matthew Wettergreen of KTRU, Jason McElweenie of Low End Theory and Laura Mayes of MMI for her creative consulting.

And last, but certainly not least, a very special thanks to Max Boyd Harrison at M2 Gallery for seeing our vision from the beginning, and helping us along to way to make this event such a success. His passion for art and artistic expression inspired us to create this awesome showcase, and for this we thank him over and over and over, ad nauseam.

If you missed the opening night, no worries. The exhibit will be up at M2 until Oct. 7, so be sure to stop by and check out what fantastic talent lies within this city. We weren't surprised, but boy, were we proud.

We can't wait for next year's event — and yes, we are planning to have one, so keep an eye out in the spring for the call for entries for 600 sq mi '08! It might be hard to top this show, but hey, we're up for a challenge, and we know the photographers will deliver.