My Photographic Bucket List

What are some of YOUR ventures you wish to do before YOU die?

Here's my list:

Sail Through The Antarctic Ice

Hike Down To The Havasupai Indian Reservation within Grand Canyon

Go Whale Watching in Alaska

Climb El Capitan

Cage Dive With Great White Sharks In South Africa

Go Jogging on the Great Wall of China

Experience The Aurora Borealis In The Artic

Ride a Camel In The Moroccan Dessert

Watch Cinema Paradiso at a Drive-In Movie Theater Under The Stars

Hot Air Balloon Over Wine Country (w/ a bottle of wine, of course)

Surf The Waves in Hawaii

Explore The Great Barrier Reef

Go Dog Sledding in Alaska

Meditate With a Monk In Yangon

Witness a Geisha Perform The ‘Cherry Blossom Dance’ In Kyoto, Japan

Play Hockey With Wayne Gretzky On A Frozen Pond

Discover El Chalten in Argentina

Get Lost In Patagonia

Cross ‘The Bridge of No Return’ between North & South Korea

Trek Through Laos by Elephant

Senior Picture Season

Tis the season! No not necessarily christmas but, senior picture season! Where self proclaimed photographers like myself must flock to random fields and wait until sunset to capture the faces of our leaders of tomorrow. I do about 35 sessions a year and it seems like i have done even more this year already. My hometown of Kingfisher is where most of my clients come from and they've been steadily growing in attendance since i was a senior in 2009. I graduated with 88 kids. This year there are around 145 so a boom in pictures is understandable and trust me, at around 150 to 200 a shoot, I am not complaining. Here is an example of some shots I did of Alex. 

Experimenting with light

Recently, i have had a project in my Photography in which i had to, simply enough, "Experiment with Light".  Here's what i ended up with.


 This first picture was taken using an extended exposure and a light bulb. How i made the light bulb light up will remain a mystery. A magician never reveals his secrets. Anyway, i like this one. Its simple. A twist on the "bright idea light bulb."

 This is the Miss America crown from 2007. My friend Lauren was crowned on National Television and now this crown sits in a back room in her house hidden from everyone. The idea was to capture the fact that this crown had its couple minutes of fame and now will gather dust in a closet.

This picture oddly enough was taken down the middle of a paper towel roll. With a light at the end. 

"Don't walk towards the light"

  

Alan Smith

Our guest speaker on Tuesday was British writer Alan Smith. We were privilaged to have him as our guest because he has more of an international view on blogging. As a writer, Mr. Smith focused more on the rhetoric side of blogging. He is more of a critique of the grammar, spelling and other English based qualities. He was helpful to me as a blogger because one of the big blogging questions i had, finally been answered. Yes, grammar and sentence structure is a very important quality to a successful blog. Conforming to popular rhetoric and slang within a blog post is the quickest way to become viewed as cheap and immature.
As a writer, Alan was always trying to come up with new and improved writing styles in order to keep the attention of the viewer. He 110% sold his ideas to every publisher despite how negatively he viewed his writings. You have to sell the idea in order to even get thepublisher to consider reading it. Along with that, you actually have to have decent writing to get your work published. Another piece of advice Alan gave was that if you can't distiguish the apostrophe placement in your, you're, you might as well give it up!

Every Photographers Dream

Big news! 
I have been accepted to live in Orlando in a place where dreams truly do come true! 
Sound dreamy?  
Sound like a fairy tale? 

Well, the shoe certainly fits because in January I will be flying out to Disney World to study photography in Disney's college program! This oppurtunity has lingered in my dreams since 2009 and i'm finally getting the chance to experience the reality! This will drastically effect my blogging as I will begin to use my blog to post pictures, experiences, and thoughts during this adventure. It will help my family and friends keep up with my life from many miles away! I am beyond excited and my excitement will only grow as the steps towards my career unfold! Stay Tuned!

Rhea Blog Assignment

Upon hearing Rhea's speech, he mentioned one quality of a succesful blog that stuck out to me. He continuously stated how important the quantity rather than the quality is when trying to maintain a succesful blog. Constantly updating and consistentally  evolving the information is a sure fire way to get numerous hits. I have lots of work to do in regards to the amount of time i spend blogging yet, I find that the more I blog, the more interested in blogging I become. I hope to continue to grow and learn more about the art and business of blogging as to where i can use it as a more effective tool upon every post.

Kurt Hochenauer-Creator of Okie Funk

I had the privilege of hearing award winning blogger Dr. Kurt Hochenauer speak in class last Thursday and i was surprised to find how enthralled i was in what it takes to become a successful blogger today. Despite the fact that he has made most of his success back in 2008 and 2009, he still remains today as a strong willed, successful liberal blogger in an extremely right wing state. I don't want to say it was easier to break into the blogging scene when he first started in 2004, but there was certainly less competition. Back in 2004, there was around 2.5 million blogs. Now, however, there is upwards of 200 million blogs. That being said, Dr. Hochenauer did an excellent job converging his media to the changing scene. He switched blog platforms multiple times as he grew in popularity. That is a feat in itself, let alone the feat of remaining a valuable read as a liberal blogger in Oklahoma. Sure, he gets his fair share of criticism, as do most controversial writers out there. 

His status as a writer has also grown since he began writing. He has held multiple writing and editing jobs for various newspapers from the beginning of his blogging career. He has worked at the Oklahoman, the Tulsa Tribune, and the Kansas City Star. One of the most honorable things i found about Dr. Hochenauer is that he purposely does not accept revenue from his blogs success. The ads that would be a result from him accepting the money, he says, would clutter and cheapen his blog and disappoint his readers. My view on blogging has changed, in that, i don't necessarily need to compromise my beliefs and morals to please my readership. As long as i stick to my guns, proofread my work, and blog often, I'm pretty much guaranteed hits.

If you are interested in reading his work click the link below 

http://www.okiefunk.com/ 
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