So today I was heading to class over at Morril. I’ll tell you, I’m not used to walking to that side of the campus because for the last 3 years all my classes have been in and around Ag Hall.

It’s a nice walk, but I have yet to figure out exactly how long it takes me to get to class from my house. Today I started off a little to early, but all was not lost in my free time because right behind the library there’s a nice little bush.

On this bush sat this nice little bird, just hanging out. I sat down my bag and pulled out my camera, and most of the time this movement is enough to scare off a bird this close to me.

The bird was about three feet away, so I pulled out the 70-200 and zoomed in on him(her) and took about 6 photos before it got bored and flew off.

Not much technical went into this, all I did was flip the camera in AV and put a small aperture on.

The most important part of this photo was I was sure to have my camera and had enough time to sit down and take a few photos.

Hope everyone is doing good,

Mitch

Today was a day of not doing much of anything, and being it a Monday it was a nice relaxing day. Today was MLK day, and the university was closed so I didn’t do anything but study and lounge around.

This evening the SJI committee hosted a wonderful candle lit vigil in remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr. They had a great turnout, and it was a great program to attend.

It was a beautiful night for an outside program. It was sitting around 60 degrees, and for a January night, that’s almost unheard of. Although the weather was beautiful, the wind wasn’t on our side.

Here in Oklahoma they don’t lie about the wind sweeping across the plain. The wind was blowing hard, and if you’ve ever had a chance to try to hold al it candle with the wind blowing every which way you understand that it isn’t the easiest thing to do.

So the candle lit vigil ended up just being a vigil with no candles. That’s not to say we didn’t try but it just wasn’t going to happen.

I hope everyone had a great day, and want to say that I’m very for what Dr. King did for this country, and was very glad to see such a large group come to honor him.

Have a great night,

Mitch

I hope that everyone is doing swell in this beautiful New Year that we have at our doorstep. I know it’s been a while since I last posted, and I won’t lie when I say that for about the first week I just kept my camera in the bag to just take a break from shooting.

Taking a break is something that I defiantly don’t recommend to anyone but a year of taking photographs can bare down on someone. No worries though, because the last few days I have the camera out for all kinds of things.

I shot an assignment for the Oklahoman and a couple for Res Life. I have a wedding coming up soon and I have a few projects that I really want to start working on.

Today I’m posting a couple photos form something that just crept up on me. Today was my first day of actually going to class, and I had a meeting with Dr. Cartmell at 3:30 in Ag Hall. I had to get over to Morrill for class at 4:30 so after the meeting I headed out to my bike.

I noticed a crowd of people, and then I saw the plume of smoke rising into the skyline. That’s when I realized that someone had caught a recycling bin on fire, so I took a variety of photos.

I thought I’d share because I had no one else to share them with.

Keep your eyes on the blog, because I plan to have some photos coming soon!

Mitch

Tonight I bid farewell to the 365 project. I want to say thank you to everyone that has stuck it out with me. Three hundred sixty-five days ago I sat in Kendra’s house and thought that I needed to do something, and the 365 blog was begun.

As I look through the photos taken over the last year, and I can say that I honestly believe that I got better at what I love to do. I don’t know If I’ll ever do it again, but I can say that I’m glad that I did it.

Like I’ve already said, I want to thank everyone who reads this blog. Those that happened to stumble across it and continue to read it, and those that are my friends and family who fill like they are required to do it.

If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have don’t it, I would have missed days and I really wouldn’t have pushed myself. So thank you, I am truly blessed and honored to have all of you to call friends.

This year brought a bunch of ups, and some downs and I’m glad that you had a chance to be right there with me through it all.

I will say that I don’t know exactly what I’m going to do this upcoming year, but I can tell you not to worry yourself to much on looking at my blog every day because I can finally set my camera down for a while. I do have some projects in the work, I might do a photo a week or something along those lines, but It’ll be a few days before I decide exactly what I’m going to do.

2011 was a great year, and I hope everyone had a great year as well. I can tell you that in 2011 I spent the year with the girl that I love with all my heart, I found out what it really means to be a member of the cowboy family and that having a dog is a great joy in life.\I prey everyone learned something good in 2011, and I hope that 2012 brings everything you hope for!

See you soon, and Stay Classy!

Mitch

Only one more day left and it’s a new year, and I can bid farewell on the blog.

I don’t know what the last photo is going to be yet, and it’s something I should have planned out. I didn’t plan it out, so what happens is what happens.

Tonight the photo is from Finley River out in Ozark, Mo. Kendra, Wyatt and I went for a nice little walk and the path we chose went right next to the river so I brought my camera.

I took a bunch of photos, and we had a beautiful sunset but for some reason I really liked this Black and White of the river. It has a spooky feel to it, but it drew my eyes in so I hope it does the same for you.

I hope everyone has a great evening, and I plan to have a great post tomorrow.

Mitch

The old saying is “Home is were the heart is” and although if you were to ask me were my home is I’d probably say Stillwater because that’s were I live and the place I love, my home is truly were this old pond sits along side the green pastures.

Shell Knob has been and will for always be the place that I call home, it was where I was raised. I don’t make it back to Shell Knob except for maybe once or twice a year, but when I do I like to go out to the pastures and just sit and listen for a while.

Through my years as a photographer, and more with this project, I’ve learned that sometimes you just have to sit and listen to your surroundings. Even if I have my camera hanging around my neck, I just let it hang and I just listen.

It really allows me to clear my head, and helps me take better photos from time to time.

Today I went to that place which is always calling my to my heart, so I decided to show some photos of home.

This pond is on my way home, and is a place that is near and dear to my heart. The lake with the bridge is from a spot up the road from a friend.

Nothing to special about how I took these photos, just wanted to share them.

Mitch

Today was not a good day. I woke up early with the thoughts of getting a lot done, and I started by pulling my car into my grandpa’s garage. I’ve been meaning to change my breaks for a while now, and today was the perfect day for it.

Once I got my car in the garage and the tires pulled off, I realized just how bad my car was out of alignment. I now have to replace both the front tires on my car, and although I’m really glad I found that out today, it wasn’t something I’m not looking forward to.

After finding out about the tires, I soon found out that someone had used lock-tight on caliber bolts. My grandfather and I tried for a good two hours to get the four bolts off, and we got three of them.

The last one involved a cutting wheel and a cutting torch. It also involves a day wait for the part to show up to the local parts store.

All the plans I had for the rest of the day kind of came to a grinding stop, and I got to hang out all day on the farm. I love the farm, but I planned on seeing some people and going to some shops that I needed to go to before I head back to Stillwater.

So this evening I decided to go for a walk through the woods that I used to play around in all the time. It’s not how I remember it, and I even had trouble finding the gate to go through.

The photos that I have attached are of the area of the grandpa’s farm were I used to have a fort and go out to spend time by myself. My little fort has been blown all over, but I did find the little ATV that I had out there.

I also found a nice deer stand right over the trail that leads you back into the woods, found out later it was my sisters boyfriends, but I decided to take a couple shots because I liked the light.

Hope everyone had a great day,

Mitch

Today was a day of catching up. It’s not very often that I find myself in the Cassville area, so when I show up I like to visit that people that influenced my life so many years ago.

I got to thinking about it, and it’s been 6 years since I ran the town of Cassville and oh, how it hasn’t changed one bit. Actually there about to get a tractor supply company and a Casey’s General Store… their getting big time I know.

This town really is near to my heart, even if I do like to poke jokes about it. There are a lot of people from this town that allowed me to be the person I am today, and for that I will always be thankful for this.

While I’m in town there are a select handful of people that I have to stop in and see.

The house in the photo above is the Henry’s house, and back in the day I was stopping in and out of this house all of the time. Now a day I make sure to at least stop once a year, especially around the holiday season.

They have a beautiful house set back on a hill, and the roadway that takes you back to it is beautiful as long as there’s no snow on the ground.

While I was leaving from my visit I just had to pull over and take a shot of the house on the hill. I shot a 5 image HDR, just because we had and ugly sky and I wanted to find a way to make it better.

The second image tonight is of a tree at my grandparent’s house. While walking Wyatt I saw it, and just wanted to take it’s picture. I shot it on a tripod in bulb mode, and had a shutter of around 4 minutes.

Sometimes it’s hard being at home, a lot of emotion that I’d rather not share coupled on top of a 12 mile drive to get a phone signal just makes it a rough time, but then when I look around at all my friends and family that I still have in this part of the world, I understand why I do love coming home from time to time.

Kathy if your reading this, or any of the others Cassville/Shell Knob native who helped me become the person I am today, I just want to say thank you! If I haven’t seen you yet, I’ll try my best to see you before I head back to Stillwater, and if I have seen you I’m sure blessed that your still in my life.

Thanks,

Mitch

Today I had grand plans of shooting something Christmas related. I just knew I would get something good from Christmas, but then I decided I didn’t want to ruin my Christmas experience fighting for that perfect photo.

So when my family celebrated today, I left the camera in the bag. That’s a hard thing for me to do, but there are sometimes it just needs to be done.

After opening the presents and hanging out with the family, I started looking for a photo to take. I had my mind set on Christmas, but then I sat down and started talking to my cousin.

I realized that she had her hair all curled, and had a cute little outfit on, and I thought what is Christmas all about?  Well for me Christmas, is all about family and so I told my cousin that I was going to take her photo.

I took her out to the cow pasture, and watching walk through the field in her heels was a little comic relief. I put in a part of the pasture with a lot of beautiful trees in it, I wanted the grey to pop out at ya and I also wanted the her hair to compliment the background.

She stood in the shadow of a tree, and I had her back up just a little bit so I could get that beautiful rim light on the left side of her head. I then put up a soft box to the camera left and the little beauty dish I bought to camera right.

I had the beauty dish up at about 6 feet pointed down at her; it was about three feet away from her. I had the soft box right out of the frame, level with shoulders.

I hope that everyone had a blessed Christmas with their family and friendsl

Merry Christmas,

Mitch