Valor Strength and Fitness is a non-profit gym located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Every October they hold a charity weight lifting competition .  Anyone and everyone is welcome to enter no matter your skill level or how much weight you can move.  The only requirement…you’ve got to show up and lift in costume.  Participants come in all shapes and sizes and despite some of the very serious faces during the lifting it’s a very lighthearted competition.      You can see images from last years event here…http://kennethmruggiano.com/weird-weights/

Last year I posted about a new mail promo that I made. If you missed it you can see it here. That promo piece even got a “Special Mention” over at A Photo Editor! It was perfect for mailing out to potential clients, but this year I needed something different. 2016 is shaping up to consist of more face to face meetings, I needed something new to take with me.  When it comes to showing work, I’ve done it lots of different ways. Loose prints, iPad, small run books (like from Blurb) and just a computer screen.  Each method has it’s pluses …

I love keeping up with my SEO. -No Photographer Ever Like most photographer I have a “love/hate relationship” with my web presence.  This mostly comes from my lack of understanding of how any of it works.  True, I understand more now than I did years ago, it’s still a drop in the bucket.  Fortunately, my web guy (and friend) Mark DeMoss helps me to navigate the challenging waters. Over the last year he’s helped me to hone my web presence in my market.  I choose to focus on my sports and fitness work.  We’ve researched keywords and made small adjustments …

On Halloween I volunteered my services to photograph a weight lifting competition at my home gym.  Little did I know how much I would like the images. Valor Strength and Fitness put on a charity weight lifting competition to help get workout cloths for a local orphanage.  Anyone could enter, the only requirement was that you wear a costume while lifting.  The beautiful weirdness that ensued was striking. And if you didn’t like any of that, here is Wonder Women lifting.  If you don’t like this you’re a monster.  

    It’s been a busy couple months, full of smoke grenades and metadata blunders.  Even when I’m busy with assignments, I’m still looking for a project.  I’m better at short-term projects, something I can set up quickly and shoot in a few hours.  Coming up with these projects can be mind numbing, so I look for outside inspiration.  Fortunately, being with Wonderful Machine, I get ideas sent to my inbox. About once a day I get an email from Wonderful Machine with stock photo requests.  Sometimes the requests get incredibly specific, for example: “Frontier restaurant in Albuquerque: the breakfast burrito …

Life of a freelancer can be very unpredictable.  I find it to be epitome of “feast or famine.”  It’s good to have some down time on equipment every now and again to get things serviced.  I took this latest opportunity to get my D700 serviced by Nikon.  One of the perks of a NPS (Nikon Professional Services) membership is   loaner equipment!  My Nikon D700 went in and they sent me a D750 on consignment.  No sooner did that D750 arrive that I had a barrage of phone calls for assignments. I barley had time to get acquainted with the …

    I had a quick shoot with Cam this past Saturday morning at The Forge Gym in Tulsa.  We got to it early in the morning to take advantage of the light and the cooler temperature.  I also kept it real simple with the lighting.  One bare strobe for some fill and let the sun do it’s thing.  I hope you enjoy checking out the images.