okc thunder

Some of you may have noticed a missed blog on Tuesday. My apologies for that. I spent Tuesday morning preparing for an afternoon shoot with Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook for an upcoming website and media campaign launching soon.

I can't share too many details right now but as soon as it launches I'll be sure to post some behind-the-scenes and give the scoop on how it all went down. And for anyone who might be wondering, Honey Badger DO care. Russell was a pleasure to work with.

I don't know if any of you are sports fans out there ;) but if you missed last night's OKC Thunder, you missed an absolute awesome game!  The Thunder were ahead at half but then trailed much of the third quarter.  They regained the lead in the final moments of the third quarter.  The Dallas Mavs would not give up though as Carter hit the go ahead shot with only 1.4 seconds left.  Thunder fans were shocked as they hoped to have already won the game.  The Thunder inbounded the ball to Kevin Durant where he drained a very long 3 for the win!  You know what just watch it.  It's a lot better that way!

Thanks to everyone who's been following along with the Old Hat 15 Days of Christmas tweets. Yesterday I tried to pass along a few things I've learned from traveling the country shooting photos and videos for Old Hat's collegiate and professional clients. Hopefully some of you were listening and found it helpful. You can find me on Twitter here to see my tweets from the day.

Feel free to follow me and ask questions if you didn't get them in on Monday. Please don't be offended if I don't follow you back, I stay busy outside of the Twitter universe so I keep my list extremely short. You can always ask me anything via Twitter and I'll respond as promptly as possible.

(The author, checking out his fabulous pictures in the background.)

Hey Old Hat blog readers, I'm back today following a busy Tuesday shooting once again for Thunder Media Day in OKC.

As usual it was fast-paced and high-energy but lots of fun as well. Pictured above is myself and Old Hat's own Brian Hostetler hanging out while Kevin Durant answers some questions for the Thunder's Ron Matthews.

You can check out the Thunder's Behind the Scenes video at this link. Keep an eye out for yours truly starting at the 23 second mark...and ending at the 24 second mark. Yeah that's what I call press coverage baby.

This morning I'll be spending the day in OKC shooting photos for Thunder Media Day.

Thunder Media Day is always a hectic affair where you literally have a time limit with each player. (Try taking photos while a guy with a stopwatch hangs out in the back. Kind of weird.)

Players have 10-15 areas they have to report to for interviews, video shoots, photos, etc. and just a couple of hours to do it in, thus the stopwatch, so you have to work fast.

Despite the furious nature of the whole thing it's fun to see what you can get under pressure. Last year I did 3 setups and managed to shoot some of my favorite pics so far.

• The NBA lockout is still on. Say goodbye to the first couple of weeks of the regular season. Now the pressure is really mounting to get something done. I hope for everyone's sake that the owners and players can get a deal worked out and save some of the season. We'd love to see some basketball this year.

In the NBA's absence I'll be gearing up for my K-State Wildcats and the angriest coach in America to tear it up later this winter.

Today we're talking photography stuff. You may be wondering, what does "building your light" mean? In simple terms "building light" is how you turn on multiple lights and at what strength they contribute to your final photograph.

The light we're talking about today is from our recent Thunder Girls photoshoot.

I had plenty of time to setup for this recent shoot. Which is always a huge plus and not always possible. The other thing I had going for me was a huge space with plenty of room to setup and lots of power outlets, also not always possible but greatly appreciated when it is.

A lot of space allows you plenty of room to separate your subject from the background. It means we can light the background independently of the subject, which is what we want for maximum control of the scene.

It was great to see Brian's post yesterday and some of the photos shot during our OU campus excursion. I've got a bunch of my own that I'm hoping to put up sometime soon. Look to my twitter feed where I post the occasional shot or possibly on this blog for any of those.

With the NBA lockout looming over the last couple of weeks it got me thinking about one of our local clients, the Oklahoma City Thunder. We appreciate the opportunity we've had to work with them, as we do with all of our clients, and wish the NBA a swift resolution to their labor talks.

As a fan it's easy to take for granted the fact that professional athletes will be out there doing their thing every year, but history has proved that you can't always count on it. Hopefully things get straightened out between the players and owners sooner rather than later, but in the meantime I've created a short timelapse of a poster I put together to keep hope alive.