When we set the date for the engagement session, I knew it was going to be hot outside, just not how hot.  When the day rolled around, I suggested we start inside and allow the sun to go down before venturing out.  So we met up and played around in the studio, and just as the sun was beginning to set, an ominously wicked front moved in and the clouds rolled and boiled around like it was going to storm.  When we finished up inside, there was still no rain so we hurried down to the Blue Dome District and played around some more.  Check out the sky!

I just returned from a ten day family vacation in Kentucky and went straight to work on Jamie and Tony’s engagement pictures.  We met up for our session downtown and wandered around looking for good light.  I think we found some and then created some good light of our own!  A slide show with more of my favorites is here:  Jamie + Tony.  I’m looking forward to the wedding later this year, especially since I’ll be working with the awesome wedding planner Erica Scott of Erica Weddings.

To keep my sanity and regain my focus, every few days I’ll step away from the current wedding or portrait session I’m working on and fiddle around with one of my personal projects.  I am currently working on a Polaroid series of places around town – what happens is I’ll be driving from point A to point B and see something that catches my eye.  If I have the Polaroid camera with me (usually not) I’ll turn around and investigate further.  If I don’t have the camera with me (usually) I’ll make a mental note and purposefully go back at the about the same time of day at a later date.  Doing this project has made me realize how much I miss working with analog photography and the huge differences between analog and digital.  When I am working with an analog medium like Polaroid, I have to force myself to slow down, to look, to really see, to change vantage points, to look again, to think about what the image will look like before pressing the shutter.  By slowing down, the thought process changes and allows for a more critical analysis to take place sometimes forcing me to walk away and not take a photograph at all.  Here are a few recent images from my Polaroid Project including Ann’s Bakery, The Cain’s Ballroom, and a hole in the wall bar I may one day venture into on 3rd street called the Nite Spot.

Jeremy Cowart, a Nashville-based photographer, developed a movement amongst photographers called Help-Portrait as means for photographers to give their time and talent back to the community to create a positive change in peoples lives. The idea was simple. Find people in need, take their portrait and deliver their photos.  I found a small group of local people, led by Whitney N. Ward, that had already begun the process of finding a location and setting a date and decided to join their efforts.  Whitney contacted the Tulsa Day Center for the Homeless and they generously allowed us to come to them last Thursday, the day they were serving their annual Christmas meal, and offer portraits to anyone that wanted to participate.

I have to admit that I was skeptical about this whole thing.  We weren’t offering food, shelter, counseling, training -so what would a homeless person come way with from a portrait session?   How could this help someone who carries everything they own with them every day?  What would we be giving them?  After my experience on Thursday, I’ll tell you.

Dignity.

As each person would walk in and take their place in front of the camera, you could see a physical change in the way the person looked, stood, sat, and responded to questions and direction when they stepped onto the seamless.  It’s as if, even for just a brief moment, they believed again that they were important.  Dignity.  That’s what what we were giving to these people.   The process of us coming to them, setting up, fussing over them, making a big deal about it, looking them in the eye, talking to them, gave them, I believe, a sense of worth, value, and dignity.  Our group took portraits of 131 people, and there were over 4000 photographers world wide that participated.

And even more important is that I came away with a deeper understanding of the plight of the people I photographed.

Look into the eyes of some of the people I photographed.  Every human being deserves to be treated with dignity.