Kropiewnicki picked me up from the airport in Arkansas and we drove for two hours back to Tulsa while listening to a mixture of Muse, Keane, and Pedulum. His expensive $700+ stereo system in his car leaves nothing unturned when it comes to bass. It’s quite a thrill and quite enjoyable. Once in town I experience the new awe that is Quiktrip. Quiktrip is and has been a favorite and it’s always good to go inside one.

My father and stepmother took Friday night and cooked for me and some friends I had over. It was a great time to see everyone all at once and start the trip off with fun and friends. The morning following entailed with family portraits with the Appleman family. I went to high school with Laura and used to go to her house with Kropiewnicki late at night and play Guitar Hero with the two of them. It was a fun shoot that involved learning the awkward things each person did. I hadn’t seen her since graduation, so it was good to briefly catch up.

Saturday night alone made this entire trip worth it. I had my three best friend that I’ve known for most of if not all of my life over to stay the night and hang out in which we called it a “guy’s night”. I honestly felt like I was a freshman in high school again. We did everything the same, that is, went to Quiktrip and got snacks and drinks, played Monopoly, played Super Smash Bros. on the Gamecube, then finished the night with the movie Zombieland. We finally went to sleep around 5:00am, only to wake up at 9:00am for them to go to work and me to carry on with my day. I love these three men and it was so great to see them and do this for the first time in such a long time.

I spent Father’s day with my dad mostly. My sister took him out to eat dinner and I tagged along. It was good seeing her and hearing what’s new in her life. My dad and I went to Best Buy, Ultimate Electronics, Guitar Center, and the old school Wizards Asylum, where I used to go on Sunday afternoons for Pokemon and DragonBall Z card tournaments. Our excuse to go initially was to waste time before we went to dinner as mentioned above.

Monday was spent with my mother at her house. She and my Nana, her mother, just got into town from Wisconsin. I taught my mother the basics of iTunes and caught her up to the digital age of importing CDs into iTunes. Now that she is in the year 2000 for technology my brother and I are trying to get her to 2010. Slowly, yet surely.

My last full day here in Tulsa started with a senior portrait shoot with a friend’s younger brother, Jacob. It was an enjoyable shoot on a piece of property owned by the family and it consisted of several tractors and old vehicles for props. Definitely a great opportunity to shoot some new and unique. I ended by Tulsa photo shoots with a shoot for Zach Lund and Daniel Opatich. We went downtown to 15th street and found some great local shops. It was my first shoot that consisted of only film and a majority of the images turned out great.

Overall, this trip back to Tulsa was everything I was expecting and then some. Now I head off to Texas to celebrate my grandparents fiftieth anniversary. Such a rare feat for anyone in today’s time. Looking forward to several photographic opportunities with family. Until I get back, I hope you all enjoy your week  and weekend.

And do not try to be consistent, for what is true to you today may not be true at all tomorrow, because you see a better truth.”

Brenda Ueland, author of the book If You Want to Write (A book about Art, Independence and Spirit) has such great quotes inside. This book is quite enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it. In fact, I thought to myself that every student in high school should have the opportunity to know about this book’s existence and be able to read it. While I don’t see that happening, partly for reasons explained in the book, I wish I would have read this sooner.

It isn’t just for writers. It is for everyone.

[hint] click the image to enlarge it via Lightroom Plugin. :)

Despite being a creeper story, I will share a brief look into my photography past. I picked up photography in January of 2009 and am great friends with Rachel Gittens. Rachel works at Relevant Magazine and knew Matt from there. To connect the circle, she told me how Matt had started out, from what she was aware, and it went from there. I checked out some of his work early on as I started photography and instantly became a huge fan of his style of photography. I’ve explored the Internet and come across several professional photographers websites and galleries and I can’t find the same emotion and style that is captured with his work. That being said, it comes down to me saying that of all the photographers out there, that I am aware of, I have been most inspired by Matt and look into his work the most when it comes to photography. He has since started a company in Virginia called The Duck Duck Collective and I definitely recommend you to check out his/their work.

A few behind the scenes pictures from today’s shoot. On a bad note, I wasn’t thinking and parked in a spot that wasn’t for public parking, so I came back to my car with two parking tickets. I hope Orlando uses that money well.

I can honestly say that I can’t ever recall a time in my life in which I looked at a person and was almost speechless and dumbfounded from their beauty, that is until the wedding. I wasn’t expecting the situation to arise either, which made it even more magical. The bride had just put on her dress and I got the heads up to walk up the stairs and meet with her so that she and her future husband could do a small meet before the ceremony. I walked up the stairs, looked at her, and I had no clue what to say. In fact, looking back at the situation, I think my words went something like, “ohhh . . . wow. Pretty.” I know that you’re thinking that is a horrible way to compliment someone, and you’re right. I am awful at complimenting people when it comes to looks. It’s as simple as saying, “you look lovely,” I am aware, but it just doesn’t happen. And Lord knows that I will in most instances not say something because I feel pressured. All that being said, the wedding was a great success and I am very thankful to have been there to document it. Now onto a few pictures from the day. More to come later, with a link of course.

Didn’t know it possible, but I have discovered yet another Muse song that I had yet to hear. The song above, called Soaked, is an unreleased song written during the time of the Black Holes & Revelations album in 2006. In a Japanese magazine interview, Matt is quote by saying, “it is just like ‘Nikita’ by Elton John or one of those kind of tunes from the 80s.” That being said, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I went to my second wedding yesterday as a photographer, and it was quite an eventful day. I haven’t been as exhausted as I was afterwards in quite some time, which doesn’t say much about my routine for exercise, or lack of. I think the biggest problem I had was standing up for such a long time. But to quit complaining, there was a lot of great opportunity for photography and it was a priceless learning experience.

I’d have to say that this seems to be the busiest month for me, having forty-six hours of class a week. It doesn’t help that we have several small projects within the classes. This month is taking a toll on my longevity of sleep and relaxation. I’ll be thankful once this class is over and I head on to my last month of class in college. Also, I’ve achieved a GPA above 3.0 which is great for me, personally. I’ve never been one to be good with grades, except for elementary school, so to have this is personally satisfying.

Here are a few pictures from the wedding yesterday. Now I have two weddings under my belt to still edit. :) Photoshop and I will be seeing each other a lot lately. Until next time, enjoy what you see.

Heartbreaker

I started listening to some Led Zeppelin yesterday and I am trying to get more of the band wrapped around my mind with knowledge of the music and understanding of both music and the band. Heartbreaker is a great song with a great riff. I’ve listened to Led Zeppelin since high school. I remember my first battle of the bands experience in high school was as a freshman and a band did a cover of Dazed and Confused. After that, I became infatuated with the songs Stairway to Heaven, Battle of Evermore, Kashmir, and All My Love. With all of the above, I digress and post some images from my first wedding as a photographer. It was a great experience that I am sure I’ll write about more as I edit more photos.

Shine

This month has been yielding a busy class schedule. My current itinerary revolves around eight hours a day tuesday to thursday with twelve hour days on monday and friday. This isn’t the end of the world, because I am fortunate enough to be able to have Saturdays off, which was imperative for this month. I get the opportunity this weekend to help take part in shooting a wedding. While it will be my first wedding experience involving photography, it will not be my last. I have two more weddings this month that are actually paid gigs that will hopefully go perfectly well and allow for portfolio building opportunity. That being said, I am both excited and terrified for all of this to happen.

On a slightly less pointless tirade, I will attempt to turn this into something of value and direction. Michael Dalton, an incredible videographer that  has a great website with awesome work that you should go an check out now, and I split costs of a decently priced camera lens, the Canon 65mm MP-E. It is a macro lens with no real focus wheel and a potential zoom range that creates a depth of field of one twentieth of a millimeter. I can’t imagine how awful it would be if 1st A.C. had to attempt to pull and maintain focus with a depth that is only meant to piss off the user by how shallow it is. Needless to say, here are a few pictures from the camera lens.

Secondly, my friend Michael Dalton shot a music video for a group called Bellarive recently and posted it on his site the other day. A combination of great music, lyrics, and definitely great footage shot by Dalton. The video is posted below, so definitely take the time to watch it. Check out more of his work here, and here.

Lastly, it has been awhile since I’ve gone out and taken some pictures, but I have been looking into other photographers work for inspiration and hope to get out and onto some ideas and fun shoots. I have three weddings to shoot in the month of March. It seemed like yesterday it was October and I had quite some time before March rolled around. Confidence will set in and it will be fun and a great learning experience.
I shot this picture earlier tonight. I can’t lie that I stole the concept of matches together from someone online, but I kept it simple. I am very glad that I prepared for the worst to happen, such as sticking a pot of water under the hanging matches in the instance of it falling at some point, which it did. The only bad thing that happened was my room smells slightly of smoke.

Today I had some simple concepts with a mirror that didn’t turn out too much how I wanted them. Honestly, the only reason I posted the one below is because I think the array of colors is quite wonderful. There really isn’t much to it other than that. Slight DOF, though not impressive, and the subject concept isn’t too grand. I titled it Anybody’s Nobody for the idea that without a head with eyes to look into, an emotion to see on a mouth, or a face to recognize, we are simply a nobody and that is all we’ll ever be. It is the face that we recognize about someone, usually.

Anybody's Nobody