New Digs

Hey guys, check out the new site! It's up and running at www.shanebevel.com. We were dragged kicking and screaming out of the 640x480 format of yesteryear and you can now actually see some detail in the photos! HA! Multimedia is gone from the site for now, but is replaced by a leaner, meaner portfolio with just four categories: Reportage, Portraits, Sports/Outdoors and Architecture/Industrial work. There is also a place for me to show work that might not make the portfolio, but is important to me, you'll find it under Personal Projects.

The format is clean and simple, but allows easy access to the images, which are the most important part. Websites for me are a living breathing being and I try to keep mine fresh (though sometimes I fail completely) I am sure there will be tweaks over the next days/weeks/years so I would appreciate any input here or at shane@shanebevel.com

Enjoy and pass it along!

P.S. The cover image is one of my favorite from our time in El Salvador, an impromptu futbol game on the construction site. Somehow almost all the workers produced a pair of cleats. Those who didn't played barefoot.

GOOOOOOO 'Pokes?

Got a letter in the mail today... one I have been waiting on for a while. It's a letter from Dr. Derina Holtzhausen offering me a position as a visiting lecturer starting this fall at Oklahoma State in Stillwater. A handful of my former colleagues from the Tulsa World are teaching there currently and I feel like the school is on the verge of an upward trend much like UNT during my days there. I look forward to riding that wave again.

Teaching is something I have done before and something I really enjoy. So to get to do it at this level, even as a once a week adjunct, is pretty dang cool. I always had great respect for the professionals who took time from their busy schedule to come and teach us at the University of North Texas. Our careers would not have been the same without them, and they should all find great satisfaction in the level of success their students achieved.

Now I hope to pass that on to my students. To embed in them the passion of visual storytelling that was given to me. The journalism world is a much different place than it was when I was in school, but despite the uncertainty and the massive changes, it should be an exciting place for students with the drive to be storytellers.

Represented......

..... and no, not by my congressman. One of my goals when I went freelance was to find an agency that I thought could help me pursue and sell my personal projects. Stories that otherwise might not see the light of day.

As of today, I have accomplished that goal. I am proudly represented by Zuma Press. Zuma has actually represented my work in the past as a staffer of the Shreveport Times and now represents the body of my work as a freelancer as well as future projects or essays I might undertake on my own.

Now this certainly doesn't mean my clients won't contact me directly for their needs, just that I have an outlet for stock photography and self assignments.

To take a look at Zuma's site visit www.zumapress.com www.doubletruckmagazine.com or www.zreportage.com

NCAA Softball Championships

Just got done shooting the division one Women's Softball World Series for the NCAA and wanted to post a few images up here. I always enjoy shooting sports, but sports at this level are just even more fun. These girls can really play ball. 

Did a story earlier this week for a new client called Education Week. Good assignment, great editor. A win win for all! Here are a few of my images from a story about Western Heights School District in Oklahoma City using data, numbers and analytics to track everything from student mobility to dropout rate to numbers of kids on free and reduced lunches in the cafeteria. The extra chairs in the graduation photos are for kids who dropped out. Power visual to represent a 29% dropout rate.