Looking back at 2011
I know this about a month late, but I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile. These images are presented in no particular order. I’m not calling them the “best” or even my “favorite,” they’re just representations of some of the things and people I’ve had the chance to cover and meet last year, which [...]
Route 66 Christmas
I needed a feature last Saturday afternoon so I took a drive on old Route 66 through central Oklahoma. Never lets you down. Found this UFO with a little green man wearing a Santa hat. Of course we ran it in the paper.
Can’t stop Catfish
I met to photograph Catfish (a name earned because of his fantastically groomed mustache) a few times and wanted to show some more of the work that went unseen. He’s a great inspiration and has an amazing story and fighting spirit. The man just refuses to give up, and is hellbent on proving every doctor [...]
The Niña and the Pinta
This was quite a sight…scale model replicas of Columbus’ ships, made using historical tools and methods, motoring down the Arkansas River through the middle of Oklahoma. The ships were much smaller than I thought they’d be, and unfortunately didn’t have their sails down because of weather. After walking on the deck of both ships, and [...]
Route 66 Marathon
This is what I get for working on weekends, another race. Following the Quarter Marathon and Tulsa Run I photographed in recent weeks, this full marathon will hopefully culminate the running season for me. It was cold, drizzly and generally miserable but no one on the course really seemed to care. I tried again to [...]
OSU reacts to plane crash
I barely understood the phone call, which woke me out of bed Friday at about 9 a.m. Editor: “Did you hear about the OSU plane crash, I need you to go to Stillwater now.” Me: “Huh? That was 10 years ago.” Editor: “No. There was another. You’re doing video.” I got up pretty quick and [...]
Deco District decorators
Some downtown Tulsa feature hunting…For the first time, the mostly vacant lower level of the Philcade building is being decorated and used as temporary retail space for the holidays. The finishing touches were being put on before Thanksgiving weekend. Most of downtown is a retail dead zone, but 10 local stores are experimenting with mini [...]
Hockey night tonight
I’ve been a hockey fan for a long time and my family has even had season tickets for the Washington Capitals for about a decade. Somehow, my photography never caught up with my fandom, so this Tulsa Oilers game was actually the first hockey game I’d ever shot. I knew it would be a challenge [...]
Keeping up with the guys
I’m always up for assignments that involve getting to drive a golf cart around for fun. It was great working with Izzy; she was an awesome subject for portraits, patient, and excited to try some crazy things. One shot we attempted but couldn’t quite execute involved setting up two wireless strobes in a sand bunker, [...]
Election night
As far as election night coverage goes, I had it about as easy as possible. I had one assignment, one person to photograph. John Brock thinks Tulsa’s city government is broken and for the last seven years has been trying to fix it. Two of the measures he helped bring to this year’s general election [...]
The anti press conference
Wahoo! Press conference! Yay!! I think I looked at the podium for about 20 seconds…Here’s the rest of my take. Also thanks to the school for actually letting me into a classroom to get something nice there as well.
Oklahoma State vs Kansas State
I will remember this game forever, but not for anything that happened on the field, although OSU’s roller coaster fourth quarter was entertaining at the time. Just after the game ended, while my cards were still ingesting in the photo workroom beneath Boone Pickens Stadium, there was an earthquake. It was the second earthquake I [...]
Bison Roundup
Looking ahead on our schedule of photo assignments, this looked interested and I requested it a week in advance. It turned out to be a case of expectations being higher than what would actually turn out to be impossible. I saw “bison roundup at the Tallgrass Prairie” and naively thought that might actually mean getting [...]
Occupy Tulsa IV: The Arrests
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation deteriorate so quickly in my life. Within a few short minutes, the scene at Centennial Green turned from a silent demonstration of a group of individuals with locked arms, to complete chaos; pepper spray being deployed, police officers dragging those who were arrested to vans, and other [...]
Occupy Tulsa III: The Warning
This was the calm before the storm. We had a tip that Tulsa police were going to enforce a curfew law on the group of Occupy Tulsa protesters who had been staying in a downtown park for several days, so I headed to the park after my last assignment and started waiting to see what [...]
Dia de los Muertos
Living Arts of Tulsa hosted a Day of the Dead street festival with music, altar displays, dancing, and food. Unbelievably, I was stopped dead in my tracks at the entrance by an overzealous ticket checker who didn’t seem to think my Tulsa World press ID badge was good enough to let me into this public [...]
Occupy Tulsa II: The Camp
When I last encountered the Occupy Tulsa movement more than two weeks ago, it was for a march through downtown. At that time there wasn’t a permanent occupation spot like in other major cities. That has now changed. It is small, it is quiet, but it is there. Protestors are currently trying to negotiate with [...]
Tulsa Run
This being the second downtown race in two weeks that I had to shoot, I struggled a bit trying not to repeat compositions or styles I had done already. For the Tulsa Run, I focused most of my energy into shooting pre- and post-race moments, rather than the running itself. Also unlike the Route 66 [...]
Flight in a B-17
“Hey can you come in a little bit early today? We have a one o’clock that needs to get picked up at the airport.” And that’s how I ended up getting to fly over Tulsa in a fully restored B-17 bomber. The guys with the EAA are great, I met some of them in another [...]
Pumpkin Baby
If I shoot one fall weather/pumpkin/Halloween feature this season, just let this be it and call it done and over with. I saw this and it just reminds me of one of the closing scenes from the film “Babies,” which, I must admit, is one of the most epic scenes in cinematic history.
Taking State
These are two very different pictures, both in celebration, taken in the same gym just hours apart. Six hours of back-and-forth volleyball will wear you out any day but after making these frames I kinda stopped complaining about the time spent at the Claremore gym. I shot plenty of action in the preceding tournament games [...]
Occupy Tulsa I: The March
The Occupy Wall Street movement has officially arrived in northeastern Oklahoma. Actually, they’ve been around for a few weeks but finally had a large, public demonstration this weekend. Hundreds gathered at the BOK Center to share stories, make signs, hear activists list grievances against big banks and corporations, and ultimately get fired up from a [...]