Community Service

I have no idea why I ever bother thinking something is going to be uneventful. If there is one thing I can count on, it is that my very existence will cause chaos.

Well for my Accounting Honors Fraternity, Beta Alpha Psi, I have to do five hours of community service each semester. Three of it has to be BAP sponsored, the rest can be any kind of community service. I did my BAP sponsored service at the community food bank. It was rather disgusting. they had us sorting Wal-Mart bakery stuff and Wal-Mart produce that the stores couldn't sell any more. I say sorting, but it was really, get the stuff out of Wal-Mart boxes and put them in unmarked boxes. No idea why we had to do that, but whatever. For my other two hours I emailed my aunt who works as the CFO of YWCA in Tulsa, and asked her if there was anything I could do for YWCA. I suggested photographing something since I did that for one of the events and my sister's nonprofit before. My aunt and the head marketing woman said I could take pictures of the four locations here in Tulsa. I thought it would be boring, but it got my credit and I did not have to do something I did not enjoy.

Well that was my first mistake, thinking this would be uneventful and boring? Yeah right.

I said I would do it on a Wednesday morning, so my aunt could send out an email to the different branches saying I'd be taking external photos and that I had permission, so don't call the cops. I am actually kind of sad, at all four locations no one ever said anything to me. bah. boring.

Went to the first location. Missed the turn off because I skipped a step with the directions on my phone. I should make an important note at this point, I have an iPhone which has a GPS built into it that uses Google Maps. After getting there, I got the pictures taken, not the most photogenic of buildings, and it was wee bit cold outside, but got it done.

Decided I was hungry so I went to Merritt's Bakery for some breakfast, it was quite tasty, love that place, if you are ever in Tulsa, be sure to drop by there. After that, off to Quiktrip for gas. While at QT I was going for the one open spot, when this HUGE dump truck/semi/unnecessarily-large-vehicle that can't see worth a crap decided he needed to backup....right where my nice little Japanese car was. I floored it into a parking spot to get out of the way. While this truck is attempting to back up, for whatever stupid reason, a car tried to get by behind it, while the SUV next to me in the parking spot is also trying to backup, all in this teensy area. I still have no idea how we didn't have a three car accident. By the time I got out of the parking lot with my gas I had nearly been in four accidents. Okey drivers, pah! Us Arkansan drivers no how to drive, okay that is a lie, my driving test consisted of six right hand turns in a residential area. No left hand turns.

At the second location, which is where my aunt works, I took shots of a much more photogenic building, and got to meet the Marketing director. After I finished up there I was sitting in my car typing the next location into my phone GPS. It told me to go west and north and take several interstate/highway/expressways. I usually try to avoid these as I hate the expressway/interstate system in Tulsa since it is confusing and many exits have no names. Well, I took the route on my phone anyway and got to the location....well I went by it....three times and took two wrong turns. For your information, the location was supposed to be right off the interstate. I finally stopped in a big deserted parking lot to figure out how I kept missing the place. I really didn't like this since I was getting nervous, I mean I had seen around 12 police cars in the time I was wandering around. I eventually realized what happened. My directions sent me to NORTH Delaware instead of SOUTH Delaware. Once I realized this, I retyped the address, correctly this time. came up with directions, .4 miles. I thought "sweet, I'm not far from the location" nope, it sent me right back where it had been, to these deserted (I hope) crap houses. Well somehow my iPhone GPS which uses GOOGLE maps somehow had trouble understanding that the word SOUTH is different from the word NORTH. So I went on the browser and found the real location, I knew where it was by looking at it on a separate map, so I did not need directions, well, I wouldn't if I wasn't in who knows where Tulsa. I put that location off for last and typed in the next address into my GPS, making sure it didn't do any funny business with the address. It sent me fifteen miles North.

I eventually get into the general area of the next center and couldn't help but think my phone was screwing around with me again. I was in some city that reminded me of small impoverished Arkansas towns. I had no idea this city, whatever it was existed. In fact I still have no idea where I was. But after driving by the street once (it was one of those annoying cases where you see your street right as you drive by it.) I get to the location. This building took the cake with unphotogenic. It reminded me of the Fayetteville Jail, except plainer and less trees. After taking my pictures, to avoid the crap that my phone sent me through before, I forced it to give me directions to the general area of the final center. And once I was sure I was headed in the right direction, I headed out based on the phone directions again.

Well, my phone wasn't done messing with me. The blue dot telling me where I am was on the right road as I drove. The road I was on was the one by the YWCA but it went through neighborhoods as it led to the interstate. So I am driving along when I notice a speed bump ahead. Actually, it was more like a speed mountain. I think it was just barely under my ground clearance and was five feet in thickness. My car was not pleased by this. Then fifty feet later **whabump** I hit another of the suckers. Barely noticed it in time, luckily it had annoying white stripes on it. I go over three more and then get on a more or less newly paved road. I am driving along when **crakubump** The evil road crews added stealth bumps that blended in with the blacktop and had no markings. I got hit by another of the stealth car destroyers before getting off the new paved area. Then it was back to the marked bumps. All this time I kept thinking that it was weird that this road lead to the interstate. When I hit a deadend, I figured out what happened, I was supposed to be one street over.

When i finally made it to the interstate, I was on the on-ramp getting ready to get over when i realized that this huge semi wasn't slowing down or getting over for me to merge on. That was a bit frightening as I floored it, literally, that pedal couldn't go down any further, and somehow got ahead of the guy before he annihilated me. I think that was near accident I had seen or nearly been in number 15. Okey drivers are TERRIBLE!

My phone told me to just keep going on the interstate until I got to my location. Well what my phone forgot to mention to me was whether to merge right or left as the interstate turned into and expressway, another interstate, then a different expressway. Or the fact that there were detours due to construction!

I finally (read: somehow) made it to the Quiktrip across the road from my final location. I was at the QT since my aunt told me that would be my best vantage point. I got the pictures, saw another six near accidents, I gotta say, at least the Okeys have good reaction speeds. Then I went across the street and parked in the YWCA parking lot and took some more pictures. This location was fun as the house (it was a house, not sure what they do there though) was really pretty and it had a tree outside that was still had orange autumn leaves.

This is where I took the following picture, quite a nice place eh?

As a final note, I have since learned that the reason there were so many police cars at the wrong place where my phone sent me was because I was by the Prison. And what is cool, is that my photos are being used in YWCA presentations.

Check out their website: http://www.ywca.org/site/pp.asp?c=ejIRK6OWG&b=4485239

The Pastel Fountain

As some readers may know, I go to the University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, Ok. Well, TU is currently in the midst of "improvements."t One is a new fountain, which is pretty cool.

When I first found out that we were getting a fountain, I knew what I must do. Bubblebath and blue dye. Even had my alibi set up with several witnesses who would collaborate. Months went by and the fountain was magically finished one day. Seriously, I have no idea when they built that sucker, one day there was a huge plot of dirt with a crazy high mound of dirt, the next, manicured lawn and fountain.

I had mixed feelings when I saw the fountain. It was a mixture of "awwwww" and "SWEET!" As the fountain was a dancing fountain with colored lights that changed often. You could run through it, meaning I could not dye it or bubblebath it easily.

Jump forward to this semester. As part of our annual welcome gift, we get these cheap spirals filled with advertisements. Well, on the spiral this year is a picture of the fountain with the Collins Building behind it. This picture sucks, so I thought to myself, "I can do so much better than that." And with that in mind, I went and took a picture from the exact same angle as the picture on the spiral. Lo and Behold, mine was better.

And in another shoot, I took this one.

Bandit

Well here it is, post number two.

More about me and my style: All the people I know who also practice photography describe themselves at landscape photographers. They like shooting...well, landscapes; ie. buildings, pastures, mountains, whatever. I honestly prefer shooting living things, people and animals. I feel that you can get more out of a shot from living things, you can capture what the person or animal is thinking, or perhaps their emotion, which then comes out in the photograph. I prefer my shots to be candid shots. You can get those emotional shots with a model and a studio, but you get unexpected and often amazing results from those random lucky shots.

Enough Wells Photography 101. My mother has a flock of sheep, and as often goes with a flock of sheep, a sheepdog. His name is Bandit due to a black line mask around his eyes and nose. It doesn't really hid his identity, I mean how many very large, white and shaggy dogs do you know? None? There you go. He is a very good dog, especially at watching the sheep. However, he is funny in that his way of saying "hi" is to try and knock you down with a dog hug. And seeing as how he is a huge dog, he is pretty dang good at this.

For this particular shot, Bandit was putting on a show of how good he is at his job and was walking around watching the sheep and then eventually sat down not far from where this shot was taken to watch over them.

What I am constantly amazed by is how much he looks like a sheep, especially from a distance, I usually mistake him for one of the sheep. If a coyote ever makes the same mistake... Well, it will be its last....

I am a sheep

Well, I guess since all the cool kids are doing it, it is about time I started my own photo blog.

A compatriot of mine, Jeremy Jewell, has a photography blog where he always posts a story with his photos, I am now going to proceed to rip him off. It really is a good idea as you can see here: http://jeremyjewellphotography.blogspot.com/ I strongly suggest going there.

I created this website a week ago, but I did not post anything because I could not decide what my first picture should be. I had two options. One option was the picture that I claim to be my first successful picture that has everything in it that I want. Or I could post a Photoshop project. The reason behind this is because I learned to use Photoshop at an advanced level before I ever learned how to use a "real" camera. I eventually got tired of using other people's photos so I decided to start looking for a good camera to take pictures the way I want.

I chose the first of those two options. This is the photo that started it all.

This picture really exemplifies my style. Since I started out as a Photoshop user, my photos end up having varying degrees of editing.

This particular picture was great by itself but I wanted to capture how I felt when I took it. I took this with my father's camera that I was borrowing at the time in a park on a cold spring day. While wandering and looking for something interesting I saw this bird fly and land in this tree. And like me, it looked cold, so I waited for the right moment and took the picture. When I got this shot on my computer, I knew it was what I was looking for. The photograph made me remember that cold, crisp, clean day, however, I wanted everyone else to feel that feeling and messed with the shot until I got this. I think I succeeded. As for those who are curious, due to my editing, this particular shot is in the grey area between a photograph and a photomanipulation.