Wedding Weekend

Wow, well sorry for the long time no post business. Things got kinda crazy as school let out, Julie graduating (more still to come on that), and a crazy weekend of weddings, but there will be more posts coming soon!

I had the privilege to shoot two great weddings last weekend back in Kentucky. Friday night was Sarah and Donny in Northern Kentucky...
... and then Hayley and Alex in Bowling Green on Saturday, actually right down the street from my apartment there.


I had a blast at both weddings and wish the couples the best of luck. Your photos will be done soon!

p.s. I must thank my girlfriend and lovely assistant this weekend, Jordan :). It would have been a nightmare without your help, Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!

Graduation day

Congrats Julie on your big day. Keep on smilin', your going to do some great things.

TRUCKS!!!

Going to the truck pull = Major truck envy for me.



Rolling into this show I was feeling pretty darn good about my truck.... then I realized that I am driving a Hot Wheels truck compared to these things.

Almost...

As the end of the school year settles in and finals week descends upon campus things pick up so I'm sorry for the lack of posting. I have been keeping a little backlog of things to post so another posting blitzkrieg will soon hit. Until then though here is something to feast upon.

Donny and Sarah will be getting married in about a week and wanted to have portrait done before the wedding to hang there. We have had a lot of rain lately so when we finally got a break in the weather we met up at this little chapel covered in ivy and goofed around until the sun disappeared. It was great time and I am really excited to shoot their wedding. Congrats!

A lost roll of film from Easter popped up today so I thought I would share. We had a Easter bunny bouncing around outside Shutterbug advertising for Easter portraits that we were doing. It got a few honks and a scream or too.

Concerto de Trombone

Trombone concert in the Fine Arts Center on Campus. The ended the night with the James Bond theme song. It made me feel like I needed to be sneaking around shooting people, but instead of a pistol I was using a camera.

Pressing Matters

Greg Nanney brought his van, loaded with t-shirts, press and ink, to Western's campus the other day. Drive by Press was born out of a Masters project of Greg's and he has been on the road for the past 3 1/2 years hopscotching campus's around the country printing his artwork on T-shirts for $10 a pop if you bring your own shirt or $20 if you buy a shirt from them.
Nick Alley has been on the road with Greg for the past 4 months. Everywhere they go they collect prints from other artists and have amassed quite the collection of artwork from college's around the country.

The sale from these shirts is all that Greg and Nick use to fund their venture, but they have gotten help from other artists willing to support their cause. When their old truck broke down it was a donation that helped them get the van they now use to continue on with their business. "I think we got about another year in this." said Greg, "It will be nice to have a home again. Right now I don't even have a bed." he said laughing.

Check out more on Drive by Press HERE.

Convocation

As greek week wound to a close the 30 something percent of campus that takes part in it converged on the student center auditorium for the awards show. The place was packed and felt like a sauna just without the big sweaty guys in towels.

Kappa Delta was one of the sororities that won a bunch of awards, but the one that really mattered was the Sisterhood award for Sorority of the year.

Thank god this room didn't have windows because when they were announced as the winners I'm pretty sure they would have shattered.

These guys are from the SAE frat and are so exicted because they just won frat of the year.

More 24

My last slot of the 24 hours assignment was 6am to 7am and The Farmers Market has opened in town so I thought I would take a gander to make some photos. I met a father and son from Oakland, Ky who run a small farm growing produce. It was the sons idea to start coming to the market and now they have been coming for close to 7 years.

His son went to Western for a semester but went back to the farm life. He said he just wants to take over the farm and could learn that out there. His brother though still goes to school and is in a singing group on campus.

I had some time to kill between the market and class to I went up the hill to rest me eyes a bit.

A familiar look

Every year yearbook and the newspaper does "24 hours." It is a look at Western every hour of the day, and what makes the people who ARE Western tick.

This happened to fall at the end of our Greek Week, so there where lots of parties, including this one out at the fairgrounds. Now I don't have much room to talk here because the only reason I set foot on a dance floor is usually to take pictures of someone in a White dress, but notice they only say, "beer helps people dance." Not "... dance better." There were some really good dancers out there that night, don't get me wrong, but others... well... others needed less beer.
This was an hour earlier in the kitchen of Wah Bah's steakhouse by campus that a lot of students work at.

The local race track, Beech bend, had some races that night so I went to check them out. Much to my dismay I couldn't track down any students there but I did find this sweet little nugget of a concession stand.


I shot Todd and Sarah for a story about dating for yearbook. They both came to Western for the Debate team and were making dinner for each other in the dorms. Is that just a look, the "O really? You know I am right." face, one that all girls are born being able to give because I am pretty sure I have gotten it once or twice from a certain someone.

Theater of life

Last week was greek week on campus. Basically a week for the 30 or so percent of Western's population to have a school sponsored reason to do what they normally do. These are from events day which is like field day was in elementary school: Egg toss, Wheel barrel race, drunken after parties, ya know, just like the old days.

Right before it all started I went by the Sigma Phi Epsilon house to see how they were training for their big day. A game of bags was their method of choice.
I never thought Wheel barrel races could be dangerous, but after watching these I was amazed that nobody broke a bone. They would try to go to fast and the guy standing would basically run over the guy he was holding up.

How they got sideways we will never know...

They actually finished last, but its the spirit that counts right?

These are from my first assignment for the school newspaper. It was about "recession proof" businesses. So I went over to the movie theaters in town.

Once I finally got inside, there was better light than I expected. Nice surprise.

Blood for blood

These first three are from the blood drive that was on campus last week. When all was said and done WKU donated over 1000 units of blood.


These guys are hooked up to special machines that take only the red blood cells out of your blood. So it takes the blood out, separates it from the plasma and then re injects the plasma into your body. You can give more at one time, but you can't give as often.
After the long lines to give blood, you got to sit back and kick up your feet for awhile.
Watching Greek Jeopardy in a super cool hat.

Feeling Blue

The Greatest Teacher

Mom was surprised at work last week by a mob and the local TV station to announce that she had won The Office Max Teacher Innovator of the month award. It recognizes a teacher, "who encourage creativity, innovation and excellence in the classroom."

Now I know I am a little biased but I don't think that there is anyone more deserving of this award. She has got to be one of the hardest working people I know and puts everything she has into every lesson and every child.

Check out more on the award HERE.
Photos courtesy of Dad.

Congratulations Mom!

A week in review

Some random shots from this past week

The weather has been a bit iffy lately, its been warming up though. We had a nice rainbow on Monday.

Shuffleboard at Double Dogs. Gotta get just the right touch...
I shot a First communion ceremony for Shutterbug on Sunday. It was interesting to see how differently they did it than I remember ours. The priest had all the kids come up front at once to light the candles and then go sit back down. They then went by rows to get their communion. Some of the kids used their candles as light sabers.

They also had a Baptism that same service. The church reminded me a lot of St. Peter and Paul, a big local church at home, in its design except that it had carpet and not hardwood. The priest was really cool about letting me shoot from wherever I needed and even asked if I wanted to get closer.

Catch-up time!

I've gotten behind on posting, kinda been caught up in a paper for another class. So here is the first of a few to get all caught up.

Softball vs. North Texas. We lost in extra innings 11-6 after winning the first game of the double header. I wish our pitcher had a wind up like this, but alas it was the opposite team.


I borrowed fellow WKU PJ student Mike Ip's gear to shot the game. He had 400mm behemoth of a lens that took awhile getting used too. It forced me to focus on the action though.

Wrong side...Oops.