A Beautiful Wedding

Last weekend I shot a wedding as a second shooter for a friend of mine. Here are a few of my favorites. It was a lot of fun and the couple was great. Congrats to Allison and Adam. The wedding was here in Tulsa with a reception at the Tulsa Country Club. Beautiful old club that over looks downtown from the northwest side. 

New Work

It has been way to long since I posted some work, so I thought I would throw some new stuff up here. These are a few of my favorites from a recent shoot at the Cushing Oil Terminal in Cushing, Oklahoma. 

The terminal moves most of the oil that passes through the US in a series of pipelines. It's a pretty amazing place. Very difficult to give a sense of scale. I shot the assignment for Bloomberg and I know the Washington Post picked it up the next day. Not sure who else. 

As I have said on this blog before I really like shooting heavy industry. It's a strange thing to appreciate, but the scale and look of things like this lend themselves to photographs... and strangely at the same time really challenge me to see the larger picture. 

Starting next week I am going to try and shoot some stock images of some of Oklahoma's wind farms, ports, biofuel plants and other heavy industry and energy locations. Should be fun. 

Light Testin'

Sometimes your model isn't around when you need her. So you have to have a stand in... sometimes your stand in isnt around when you need her. So sometimes... you need a tripod. 

I like this look. I really hope I can replicate it 5 more times over the next week.

BTW, the stand in finally showed up... she had a new hair cut. 

Crazy Kids

Wow.... it has been a bit of a whirlwind the last couple weeks. My apologies for not updating here. I've shot as varied a group of assignments as I would have in the newspaper industries. Everything from portraits to sports to fashion to architecture. One this that has popped up a good bit is kids. 

Now don't get me wrong, I don't want to be the next strip mall kiddie portrait guy... but I do enjoy shooting the occasional custom in house or on site portrait of the occasional kid. The past couple weeks I shot a few, and man, it was fun. 

It also helps to have cool parents who understand and appreciate the difference between what you get at Sears and what you can get when you hire someone who will come to your home and take their time. 

Also, as always there were a few cool kids at a wedding I shot in Houston. 

The Sweet Roar of Fandom

Well kids, it is that time of year again. Time for basketball tournaments and screaming fans and pep bands and full body paint. I am not the world's biggest basketball fan, but I do enjoy the tournaments at all levels. 

Last night I shot a fantastic game at ORU. They just lost to NDSU in the final moments but the fan's excitement and the near full Mabee Center reminded me of the things I like about this time of year and the work I have done for the last ten years. Next week I will be covering some Div. II games at the Lone Star Conference and after that? Who knows. A lot depends on where ORU ends up after the Summit league tournament in Sioux Falls, SD this week. 

Let's hope for them (and me!) that it is some place great! 

A Camera To Call My Own

Well last week was a little crazy, but in a good way. Staff photojournalists are issued gear to use from their companies, so when I was laid off, I was in a bad spot. This week I bought some gear and shot a couple of ORU games. It's amazing the feeling of owning your own gear. For those who don't know, it's not cheap. Pros don't use the $800 cameras that you see in Circuit City or Best Buy. The cameras we shoot with cost about $4000 new and the lenses can be even more expensive. 

For now I have what I need and the future is wide open for us here. All we need now are some clients. if you know anyone, please... send them this way. 

New Stuff... And A New Day

I have been holding off on this post now for a while. Wasn't sure exactly what to say. It has been a shocker of a week. I was laid off from my full time newspaper gig on Jan. 6th. So here I am a week or so later and I feel like I am headed for a better place. I have some freelance leads and more importantly at this point, I have a plan. 

I'd love for you all to take a look at the portfolio site and let me know what you think. I have expanded the galleries and added galleries for Food, Portraits, Places, Outdoors and Fashion. There are of course still galleries for my hurricane work, sports and editorial singles. 

www.shanebevel.com

Soon we will have an entirely separate page for weddings and I have already had some interest in booking weddings this summer. If you know anyone getting married in Dallas/Fort Worth, OKC or Tulsa, please pass my information on to them. 

On a last note, please just keep us in your prayers. Its going to be a little crazy for a while and Fran and I need all the help we can get. 

Iglesia El Rosario

I meant to post this last week and things have gotten away from me, but on Saturday in El Salvador we went on a little sight seeing tour and one of the places we went was the Iglesia El Rosario. The church from the outside (seen above) pales in comparison to the cathedral across the Central Park in downtown San Salvador. In fact, barring the post-modern bell tower, you would never know it was a church. It looks much more like an aircraft hangar from the outside. But I cannot image that the traditional cathedral can hold a candle to the interior of the all concrete, glass and steel decor of the El Rosario.The architect designed everything from the exterior to the interior and even the stations of the cross and the stained glass that tells the stories of the Bible (you can see these in the Pano, they are very stylistic panels of steel over clear glass across the top of the doors and back wall) from the three simple materials. 

The walls are fully ventilated in a way that is really too hard to describe, but let me just say that the outside air literally blows straight through the building. I counted only  about a dozen small light sources that were not provided by God himself. Everything else was natural light.

The Stations of the Cross didn't actually show the entire body of Christ. For the most part they were just his arms, or hands. The entire space was truly a work of art. Although I didn't take my panoramic head and tripod on the day long trip, I did manage to hack together a panoramic that will give you a good idea of the space and its beauty. 

HERE IS THE PANORAMIC

If you make it to El Salvador, please make a trip to see this amazing building. But please... take a tour guide or fixer. It's in a rather rough part of the downtown market area but is well worth the trip. 

Little Dune Buggy.....

On Saturday Fran got tired of laying around the lush gardens of the Rancho Estero Y Mar and decided to take out all her energy on the beaches of El Salvador. So we rented a dune buggy and hit the beach, it was a lot of fun. Here is a little video.
Little Dune Buggy.... from Shane Bevel on Vimeo.

Traffic Clowns

As we were pulling across a particularly hairy intersection on the Pan American Highway we heard a whistle and looked out the bus window and saw a clown. When asked about it our tour guide simply stated... "Traffic Clowns... you know, police make you cry, but clowns make you laugh!" That was really the only explanation we got. And I suppose... the only one we needed.