OK!

Yes I'm OK! Oklahoma that is. I know! I know! It's been a while! Let's catch up on the news.

I had a nasty case of poison Ivy recently. About 80% of my body was covered in the stuff. Not fun! The dermatologist game me some good steroids to kick it's butt. Never done 'roids before but WOW! No wonder athletes take them! Talk about Superman! I was eating 2 - 3 dinners a night. Working out twice a day. My poor dog suffered through long runs with me! I was waking up at 5am every morning, launching out of bed ready to rock and roll. It was craaazy! Glad I'm off of that stuff and rid of that nasty Poison Ivy. Oh and I got that stuff from working on shrubbery in front of my house. I've already got one kid doing my lawn, now it's time to hire another to handle that part :)

In other news, I've been away for work in a foreign land for the last week...i.e. Washington D.C.... then came right back and headed up to my buddies farm in Oklahoma for the weekend. Talk about a cool place! Here's some shots:

Here's Calamity Jane (CJ). CJ is a Pit Boxer, half pit bull, half boxer. She's the coolest chick dog ever! My dog Zulu, would so love to hang with her!

One of my buddies horses. I really like this one in Sepia.

There's my friend petting his horse. Right about his time a pack of Coyotes started to howl. The various yelps, and barks were so cool!

And one more shot of the horse.

Ok back to work for me. Busy busy week ahead. Next month I'm once again traveling for some work related stuff. Hope I can get a few more blog entries out by them. I have some seriously cool projects on the burner, things which will knock your socks off :) Stay tuned!
-Mark

Art Of War 3 - Ring Girls...

Ok so I've had plenty of request for ring girls!
So without delay..enjoy :)


This is my friend Whitney Harachanko. At the weigh ins, I saw her sitting at a table bored, so I went over and chatted to her (not knowing that was her MOM right next to her!)... Anyways, she just turned 20, a super famous model, a black belt in karate, level headed, low maintenance and a really cool chick. COMPLETELY opposite of what one would expect from the typical model stereotype! I pointed out all the famous fighters walking around her and she was amazed! We chatted about MMA for a bit, apparently she is a new to it all, but is a now a big fan! I'm sure I'll have pics here for you guys, from later events...

This is one of the 4 inter-fight dancers to keep the crowd fights to minimum.

I met this really cool chick at the luncheon, again at the weigh ins and of course at the fights. I joked with her we needed to stop meeting this way :) She laughed with a cute laugh only a true Texan could have! She's super cool and has a great sense of humor!

Whitney doing her best statue impersonation.

Here's Whitney...and I might be wrong...I think it's...Natalie?...ohh sorry bad with names. That's ok I'll get her name next time we meet up :)

-Mark

Art Of War 3

A small dream came true last week. I was given media creds to the Art of War 3 mixed martial arts fights. USA team versus a tough Brazilian team. Some incredibly famous fighters were on the card! I was allowed to photograph and have lunch with them last Wednesday. Then on Friday, I was there for the weigh ins. One of my all time favorite fighters, Marco Ruas was there! I turned around searching for a shot and there he was just standing there! I took a quick tourist shot and shook his hand. He's now one of the trainers for the Brazilian fight team. As I scanned around some more, I recognized easily a dozen famous fighters from the past and current events. wooooow! It was nuts!

So fight night comes around and I make my way to cage side. I ask the media organizer where was my spot among the other sports photogs...Uhhhhh well....sorry you're just going to have to roam around, we don't have a spot for you. I thought for a bit that life had just kicked me in the Jimmy and I was going to get junk shots all night. I was a bit bummed for a while. With fight photography, you need to be close to the cage or you get a shot with lots of chain link fencing, and you must balance this with keeping out of VIP's/spectators/cameras/fighters/managers/ring girls/security's way. Which means if you don't get a dedicated spot...you're just in the way.. Soooo what's an MMA photog to do??
Get in the CAGE! YES! Since I was a roamer, I was therefore given a license (in my feeble mind) to do what I want :) Inbetween matches, when they were cleaning up blood and waiting for fighters to enter, I would jump in the cage and take some shots! It was so wild being in there! I took 2054 shots that night. Over 1000 were in the cage :) NO OTHER photog got shots like these :)

And now I'd like to share with you a very small sample of my night!

Waterman, HUGE dude!
I met him, he's super cool!
And very well spoken, obviously educated. ;)
He won his fight.

Jeff "The Snowman" Monson
Another gigantic dude.
He didn't win, but he fought a good hard match.
An intense moment for all. Monson, knocked down, checking his hand for blood.
The ref beckoning him to stand up and fight as his opponent Rizzo waits.
Another knock down...Monson contemplates getting back up. He looks to his right...directly into my camera and I take this shot. One thing, I'll never forget, is this icy cold stare.
(even if you don't like MMA, click this pic for the big version...it's wicked!)

Jorge Santiago celebrating his victory!

Thomas Schulte, awaiting the results of a long, hard fight.
(he lost)

Luis "Banha" Arthur Cane entering the ring.

Carlo Prater victorious!

Carlo may have won, but he took a few shots to earn it!

Alex "El Toro" Andrade gives Fabiano Capoani a good swift kick to the ankle! ;)
(Andrade wins)

-Mark

Deep Ellum Shoot

Busy week for me! I was a media photographer for the Art of War 3 mixed martial arts fighting. I'll post some of the shots of that soon! It was totally awesome!

Today my buddy Dave (aka Agent Orange) and I took his daughter's friends down to Deep Ellum and had some camera fun. All the kids were great sports, at one time we had them sitting on a couch we pulled from the trash!

Playing Catch!

This wasn't staged at all. Totally candid!

I love this shot!

Police Line

Another candid shot.

Overpass...

Street gang

Dynamic duo

Sepia Couch

Jump!

-MArk!