Corporate photo

This is a story of connections. We went to this financial planner about 6 months ago for some advice. In the process I talked about starting my own business and the principal planner (the guy in the front) gave some off the cuff advice about how important it is to stay in contact with your real and potential clients. I took his advice and kept in contact with him and 6 months later got a call to do their updated corporate photos and website.

In the process of doing that I have now landed another contract with a husband of one of the other employees helping with his company's website.

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Good Day Tulsa

My wife, Linda, took this while waiting in the 'green room' for me to finish the interview on 'Good Day Tulsa'. It is a morning show that follows Good Morning America here in town. I was being interviewed about my napkin being in Time Magazine and the napkin story behind it all.

The best part was that the interviewer, Kristin Dickerson, agreed to let me do a photo collage of her for my 'Velveteen Woman' project!

The video is not yet available online but when it is I will post it, or a link to it.

Good Day Tulsa, originally uploaded by Make Studio | Marty Coleman.

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Local TV Interview with Yours Truly

Artist in Time Magazine
Want to see what your favorite napkin artist looks and sounds like? Check it out!
I was interviewed by a local TV station about the Obama napkin and the napkin story in General.
It was fun!

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The Application

I love taking photos of models getting ready for a shoot, it is almost more interesting and fun than the shoot itself sometimes.



She had been running around off-set wondering where her lip gloss was, so when she found it I followed her into the kitchen at the auto repair shop/photography studio and took some shots as she put it on.

We were having a photo shoot in an auto repair garage that adjoins the photography studio. We had someone in who was giving a tutorial on studio lighting. At one point he asked this model to do some poses on a divan/couch with her shirt pulled up, exposing her abs and belly button. I could tell she was a bit uncomfortable with that and was worried about what her parents would think, especially her father. The poses weren't exploitive as such, but they were on the cheesy side and I could tell she was a bit awkward about it.

Turns out she has the same name as one of my daughters and graduated from the same high school, a few years later. We talked a bit about her going to college and what she wanted to do. She seemed to like the photos I took off-set. I will have to ask her what she thought about the ones I mentioned above.

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The Girls in the Garage

Our photo club was having a photo shoot in the auto repair garage that is attached to the photography studio where we meet. They had brought out all the lights and back drops into the garage to do a tutorial on studio lighting.

It was a bit too crowded to really hear what they were saying so I stole a few of the models and went to another part of the garage where I found a scaffold for them to get up on. I went up a ladder and got this shot, among others.

I had the camera on manual settings for a long exposure and then added the flash at the end to get the effect.

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Composition with Fire Truck in the Fall

First series taken with my new camera, the Panasonic G1. I was doing a shoot in my home and we had her sillhouetted against the window when we realized there was a fire truck in the lonely subdivision on the other side of the park. I asked her to go outside and look at the truck through the top of a broken picket in the back fence. She was a trooper and did so, even though it was windy and cold! I love the pose and the reverse voyeur feeling of the nude looking over the fence at the firement.

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Composition in Fall

What a perfect walkabout find at the Fair! A beautiful African American woman was standing at a food booth and there was that 'gotta stop moment' when all the world fell into perfect harmony.



This was an instant favorite of mine before I even looked at the results a few moments later. It couldn't have been set up in a studio any better.

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The Racy Race Car Driver

Two days later the cheerleader was transformed into a race car driver.

I met her by accident elsewhere at the fair and stopped her to tell I had posted the photo of her as a cheerleader and the immediate response I got from a friend of hers who she went to high school with. She was very happy to hear it, saying it completely made her day.




We got into a conversation about how many costumes she has (about 150) and the amount of work she does traveling between Tulsa and Los Angeles.

She mentioned she needs to have photos taken of her in all her costumes to update her website and I, of course, offered my services to do the photo shoot.

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The Painter and the Custodians

Tulsa State Fair - The area behind the midway and outside the big expo building is a great place to see spaces and people in unexpected juxtapositions.



But don't go there if you have a sensitive nose. It truly stinks!

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The Keepers of the Flame

Tulsa State Fair - 2008

I love groups of people that hold on to something. They are the keepers of the flame.



I like that there is a young woman in the midst of the older women. She will be those women in another 30 years, and will have handed down the clogging tradition to someone much younger. I love that.

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My Favorite Cake at the State Fair

Man, was this ever the stand out for me. What a great, innovative idea for a cake! As a designer, I love going through the cake display in general. There are so many creative decisions that are made (or not made) that make looking at the creations well worth the time.

My Favorite Cake at the State Fair, originally uploaded by Make Studio | Marty Coleman.

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Backs and Straps at the State Fair #1

One of the best aspects of the State Fair for me is the plethora of fantastic backs and straps. The design combinations are never ending.



I liked this one in particular because of the bright lime green X across the middle of her back.

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What I think she Thought

A variation on my 'Truths and Things I Made Up About This Woman' series.

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The Cheerleader at the State Fair at the Casino Display of the Creek Indians

You see a LOT of wild things at the fair, but for some reason this casino cheerleader really just topped them all today. She was very kind to pose for me with good cheer. September, 2008

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High Contrast - Black Out

Continuing on with my high contrast series.



Came to work back in 2006 to find we had a black out after a big storm. Couldn't work
in my office since it has no windows and is in the tornado shelter hallway, VERY dark.
I walked around taking some photos of students studying under some of the emergency
lights that were on.

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An American Lawn

Number 5 in my week of American Colors.



I chose this one for the Fourth of July because it is the quintessential eccentric American scene. The guy who lives in this house is a golf fanatic. He has a mini putting green on his lawn, complete with sand trap, water hazard (off to the right) and a pin. In the background is Old Glory illuminated by the sun. Gotta love America!

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Flag | Blinds

I was sitting in a design meeting at OSU Medical Center in Tulsa and before it started I noticed the
big flag in the atrium intersected with the vertical blinds in our conference room. Easy choice to
take the shot right then.

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American Composition #1

Day two of my week-long series on American colors in celebration of the 4th of July.


Found this American scene while photographing near the railroad tracks and Arkansas River in
Tulsa back in 2006. I think it was part of a run down garage next to a run down house. But that
really didn't matter. What mattered was the undesigned, unanticipated beauty of the American
colors in such an unlikely spot.

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Color Composition #12

4th day of my series of Color Compositions taken at the Cherry Street Farmer's Market in Tulsa, OK


I didn't set this up except to ask the woman if I could take her photo just the way she
was. She had the tattoo and she had the flower just like that.

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Color Composition #3

A continuation of the Color Composition series I started last week. The photos were
all taken on a very bright and sunny morning at the farmer's market as part of a
photography group I was leading that day where we focused on color and composition as
the defining factor in a photograph.



I just had to catch up with this woman and ask her to if I could take her photo. She
was standing right next to this table and the red/red/red was just too luscious to
resist!

Cherry Street Farmer's Market, 6/14/08, Tulsa, Oklahoma

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