This is a true story of when life gives you lemons, you try and not cry yourself to sleep.  The names in this story have been omitted to protect the mistaken. A couple weeks ago, I got a phone call.  The kind of phone call I’ve been dreaming about for a while now.  The person on the other end of the phone asked me if I would be interested in shooting in Chicago for them the following week. My mind went into overdrive! I spent some time over the weekend running down some possible assistants, and come Monday, I was on …

    A couple months ago I photographed a couple people for an article in The Atlantic. It was about an execution that took place here in Oklahoma just over a year ago now. The article was amazingly well written, I was honored to have some portraits along side it.  If you wold like to read the story you can view it online here.  Here are the portraits from the article and a couple other favorites.  I hope you enjoy them.  

  I had the pleasure of photographing Shaman Hotep for the latest edition of This Land Press.  Mr. Hotep is gracing the back cover which is reserved for unique and interesting individuals in Oklahoma.  To say this was a unique shoot would be an understatement.  We had a small crew and apparently I was the only one that didn’t get the hebbie jebbies from the idea of putting in contact lenses for another person.  I got a great deal of practice putting them in since they fell out about every 10 frames. Pick up the latest edition around town and …

Here are a few images from a recent fitness shoot at The Forge Gym in Tulsa Oklahoma with Kayla Fassio.  I hope you enjoy taking a look.

I think, as an industry, photographers talk about inspiration a lot.  We are either trying to find it, discovering it or attempting to evoke it.  I’ve recently found inspiration in the last place I would expect it — in my own work.  More than the work, actually, the inspiration is from the subjects. And the inspiration that affected me has nothing to do with photography.  Over the last two years, I’ve stumbled into photographing more athletes and fitness enthusiasts, and it has, in great part, inspired me to take better care of myself. So who are these people that inspired …

Here are a few tear sheets from the most recent copy of Oklahoma Sports and Fitness Magazine.  Had a fun shoot conceptualizing the Tulsa Tough theme of “Tough Love.”     We worked a knife in at one point (pun not intended) trying to really drive home the tough factor.  It didn’t make the final cut (pun intended) but I still really like it.                      

I’m always on the look for potential subjects.  Approaching them is something that I’ve actually gotten better at, despite the video evidence below to the contrary.  When I was in college working for Student Media I hated talking to people to get caption information after I photographed them.  Approaching a person before the photograph was even harder.  As I became more confident in my ability it became easier, but it was still difficult for me.  When I decided I wanted to be a full time photographer I knew I needed to do my best to remove the apprehension of talking …

Here are a few images from my shoot with Jason McClendon.  He’s a Men’s Physique Competitor and aspiring Fitness Model.  Below are a series of images from our shoot and a profile on Jason.  

    JR Rutherford is my tree guy.  He just has that look of someone you must photograph.

Self promotion has been one of the most difficult things for me to over come as a photographer.  I constantly ask myself who cares, is this relevant, do I sound like a douche bag.  I’ve decided to get over myself this year and just put the work out there and let the chips fall as they may.  Too that end I started this year with a new promotional piece that focuses exclusively on my sports and fitness work.  I was encouraged by several  of my peers to share the promo piece on my blog.  Since at least two people thought it was interesting I figured there had to be …