WWE RAW 6-30-2008

WWE RAW came to OKC, and I was able to take not only my friend Amir, brother Blake, but also my 7yo nephew Braiden.

He's never been to a wrestling show, so when I heard they were coming to town I knew he had to experience what me and Blake has on so many occasions. Watch RAW...LIVE!!!

Another added bonus is that Amir had never been to a live event either, so we had two newcomers taggin along with us. It made it all the better.

I felt like a veteran and they were the rookies. I had been to nearly 10 shows and this being their first, I can still remember the excitement I had going to my first event, so I knew what they were going through.

Sure, the photos Ive posted arent of the best quality, but I did capture the essense of the experience in the first photo.

Thats all that counted, putting a smile on the boys face, was worth every penny and more.

Just so ya know his favorite wrestler is John Cena (2nd photo posted), he's got posters shoes, backpack, lil plastic championship belts, and every t-shirt he wears is John Cena, he doesnt want to wear anything else.

So for him to see his hero, words and pictures will never be able to do justice to the moment I helped create. INCREDIBLE! Nothing can ever top the emotion, experience, and feel of a live WWE event....nothing!

Oh yeah, during the show John Cena got "kicked out of the building" and Braiden thinking it was for real, nearly cried and wanted to go home. I told him to hold on, Cena will be back towards the end of the show, and sure enough he was, that certainly made Braidens day.

When he realized Cena had come back, I didnt need to pick him up on my shoulders, he nearly jumped right up onto them.

300

For some reason the movie 300 came up in a conversation, and as usual the biggest topic was the actors conditioning.

Crazy ripped!!!

Who doesnt want to look like that, right?

I do too!!

So Monday Im on a quest!

To get back into shape, better than before.

We'll see how it goes, look for updates, Ill post them.

No doubt this will be insanely difficult, but Rome wasnt built in a day.

The Lil One

This shot was taken 2 years ago at my uncles land in Mustang,OK.

I was leaning on one of the rails watching him and his buddies rope, and my niece, who at the time had just turned 3, clumbed up the the rail and placed her arms like mine.

I remember seeing out the corner of my eye, her looking me up and down, mimicing the way I was leaning my arms over the top.

My sister was the one who caught the moment.

Olivia, now 5, was still in diapers, and I can remember nearly every aspect of that day.

The temperature, a warm but breezy day, the smell of the dirt, the grass, the horses, the cattle.

I can remember looking off into the distance and seeing Oklahoma City, but barely.

I can remember the sounds of the horses galloping, the cattle rustling in the pins, the sounds of the rope beeing loosened.

This is one of those days that nothing major happened, it was just a prefect day that had a lot of good moments come together.

I threw in a processing technique to give it a homedown, nostalgic feel to it.

Its Clean!!!!

I finally got around to cleaning up my truck.

Needless to say its been past do for it to be spic-n-span.

So I went to the local car wash, got $5 in change and went to town.

Put 50 cents in and went to scrubbing.

It was a nice day and I prefer to hand wash/scrub it rather than a drive-through.

Then cruised over to the vacuum area and spent another buck-n-a-half on that.

It was needing it, it seems to always sound and drive better when clean.

Then I cruised to a local park, and snapped a shot of it. First time Ive taken a picture of my truck since the first day I got it.:D

Random Thought

I know I normally have at least one post a day, but today I really didnt know what to put up.

So I was going to leave it and maybe tomorrow I would have something.

So I shutdown the computer, lay down and watch some t.v.

Out of nowhere I got the thought, "I want to name a dog Chicken!"

Im not sure why, so no need to ask, I wont be able to answer it.

Just something about yelling at a dog, "CHICKEN!!!! C'MERE!!! CHICKEN!!" and seeing the confused faces of neighboors.

So there you have it, todays post, techincally its 11:53pm so I snuck it in.

I want to name a dog Chicken.

Gummy Bear Gang

Pretty much self explanatory in title.:)

I was bored.

Ok so there was perfect lighting one day and it was a shame I didnt have any photoshoots booked.

So instead I just went out and shot some plants around the house. Nothing special but figured Id throw them in here.

I was asked if I had updated it and at the time I hadnt, so heres to ya.

OpLOVE Reunited: Behind the Scenes

So Amanda says to me, "Come on.", and I says to her back ,"Ok.".

She was doing a charity shoot for a soldier over seas. She would take shots of his family and then soon after, send those photos to the soldier. Very special moment.

So all I did was just shoot her shooting, it was certainly a different experience.

For once I didnt have to think angles, composition, lighting, exposure...BLAH BLAH BLAH.

All I needed to do was get her doing her thing, I was lucky enough to catch her from various angles. Many I liked. ;)

Here are some of those shots.

I made someone spend a grand!

Yeah, thats right....a grand.lol.

Missy asked me to helpe her pick out a camera, and as always I obliged.

I first pointed her in the direction of a Canon S5 IS, a very good camera, very versatile.

She then wanted to know which one I got, so I walked with her over to the DSLR section at Best Buy and showed her. Well actually, they dont carry Xt's anymore, all they had were the Xti and NEW XSi. Both good camera but we both agreed the XSi was a lil too much for her right now.

So we debated for about a good solid hour-n-a-half over what package to get. LOL.

The salesman was a lil "eccentric" as I like to call it, but generally a good guy and helped out a lot. Not really, but he was a goof so it made it a fun.

He even confused me as her son, in which he was corrected and told I was her husband(WHOA!!!), MAN the look on his face was worthy of a photo. He fumbled and bumbled(is that even a word?) over his words until finally we left,lol. We had a good laugh about that back to the car.

So alas, I was able to talk a compulsive buyer into a grands worth of camera gear,HAHA.jk.

I coulda tacked on another couple hundred but thought NAH....why?

She'll do fine with this camera, good setup. Lets just hope she doesnt get into it as much as others, or she'll be buying $1000 lenses and such. YIKES!!!

Not good, then Ill have competition.

Found a new location

So Ive passed this place several times and never gave it a second though, UNTIL I started to look for rundown places to shoot.

Its not in the best part of the city, as you can see, it may not be the cleanest, as you can see, but it has A LOT of character.......as you can see.

Id like to take a future model here to do a shoot, it is severely rundown, and as me and my brother were walking through it, saw that there were squaters residing there.

We found blankets, cupts, bottles, etc etc. There wasnt anyone there at the time, probably wont be for a while.

Anyways, thought Id share, good location, I would love to find more, just have to keept an eye out.

Keep your eyes open too, you may just recognize the place in some photos Ill post in the future.

Free Texture!!!

I figured why not offer a free texture from now and then?

I use them quite often and if you do as well, here's one for ya. Use it..........






go ahead. I dare ya.

BRILLIANT Idea

On this day my friend Steven came up with quite an odd yet brilliant idea.
He wanted photos of him sitting on a toilet in random places throughout the city.

Just chill'n as if he was sitting on a chair not actually appearing to do his business.

We knew another friend that was able to get us a toilet, so we hauled it around in the back of my truck to several locations.

It was as goes, find location, stop, get out, I would make camera adjustments while my brother Blake, and friend Steven would setup the toilet, snap a few shots, run back into the truck, while they returned the toilet to the bed of the truck, then speed off. All in a matter of minutes, we sure did get some odd stares, and also some laughs on our part.

In the process of finding a location we found a shopping cart, PERFECT seat for my brother. So he got in on the fun as well. Notice him in his photo showing off his grill. BLING BLING!

It was fun to say the least.

Family

This had to be back when I first got my camera, Xt at the time.

I was walking around downtown, shooting various things, buildings, waterworks, people.

As I was walking under the railroad tracks this family came walking towards me.

They seemed so happy, something not seen everyday. They were hand in hand with their child being the middle piece. There was an obvious pop in their step....a giddy-up as you country folk like to call it.

For some reason I stopped them and asked if I could snap a shot of them, and not surprisingly, they said "Sure!" with unexpected joy.

They never mentioned wanting a print, or asking am I going to use the photos for any profit.

They simply replied to my answer and off they were.

So I thanked them, let them pass by, hunkered down (country folk word) and snapped this shot.

Now this had to be back in Nov of 06, but recently I added some of my flavor to it.

New Ink

Im trying to catch up on things thats happened over the last year. So far Im just getting to the good stuff.

This time around it was back in October of 07 when I finally got a tattoo.

It happened exactly in this fashion.

I woke up and the first thought was "I want a tattoo!"

All my life I had told myself there wasnt a tattoo in the world that I needed permanently on my skin that I couldnt just draw on a piece of paper.

I wasnt sure what I was getting, but I knew I wanted one...BAD!

Two days later I got one.

During the two days prior I had drawn several designs (go figure...DRAW my own tattoo,haha) but wasnt satisfied.

Finally I decided on a design, went to the local tatt shop, told the dude what I wanted, he sketched out what he came up with on me with a sharpie, and 3 hours later I was ink'd.

It was a amazing feeling, the pain wasnt so bad, it was more addictive, and it shouldve been because the tattoo'er kept getting calls and he would answer them. So while hes chit chattn my shoulder is swelling and throbbing, then hed hang up and go back to work. This happened at least 6 times so I got a good dose of that "addictive" pain. Despite that I took it, and loved it.

This photo was taken literally the minute I got back from the shop. I decided to switch it to a B&W because my skin was still red and swollen.

I love my tattoo, and am hoping to extend it down my chest in the near future. Ill keep you all updated on that.

Alissa's Senior Photos

One day I was contaced by Missy, the mother of Alissa, who wanted to have her daughters senior photos taken.
I had practiced photographing my family so I felt I was ready to move to a new challenge.
We set up the shoot to be at Will Roger's Botanical Gardens. I had never been so I decided to visit the place the day before the shoot.
My and my brother got there, chased some squirrrels, ran through some mud, you know the normal stuff. After all that I felt I was one with nature.
We met the day of the shoot, got the business part complete and went on to shoot.
I could tell Alissa was nervous, but I dont blame her I dont like being in front of the camera either. I helped her relax by talkig with her about this n that, laughing, cracking jokes, anything to ease her nerves.
It seemed to work because as soon as she calmed down, her photos got better and better.
Overall it was a good day, we all had a blast.