Before we get started, here is the direct link to our full senior portrait portfolio gallery - which features many of our favorites images from the last three years. It is exactly where you need to go if you want to get the full spectrum of what kind of work we do at Shipman Photography! But the purpose of this blog is to tell you more about senior portraits with us in general and what to expect from your experience with us. If you are interested in booking, getting pricing or have any questions, please email us at [email protected] or give us a call at (918) 947-9601.
A sample of 2017 seniors, shot on location and in studio.
Recently, CBS news aired a story on senior portrait photography. The story was about how different it has become since back when we parents were kids. It certainly has changed, I'm reminded every time I visit my mom's house and see my senior portraits right there on the bookcase where they've been since 1988. Those old pics are OK, but I always see them and think back to who I was at that time, and I think they kind of missed the mark. Now I think of things I wish we had done differently, but it simply wasn't an option back then. Everyone went to the same place and was shot in the same series of poses. That's no longer the case today. Everyone has a decent camera in their phone and knows a dozen amateur or part time photographers. The friend with a camera has replaced the SEARS portrait studios of yesterday and the cellphone has replaced the point and shoot. Good photography is cheap and easily accessible these days and there are tons of talented shooters out there.
So today, if you are going to make a living as a senior portrait photographer, you've got to do some really special things that stand out from the crowd. You need to create unique and powerful "WOW" images, and you have to focus on customer service and exceeding expectations. That's exactly what we do.
The photographers featured in that CBS story have very similar processes and businesses as ours, and can best be described as custom senior portrait photographers. Custom, in that we break the mold and throw it away every time we shoot a new client. It should never feel the same or look the same from session to session and the images should never make you cringe when you go to your mom's house and see them 30 years in the future! Our company slogan is "Be Authentic." And that is our simple mission - to capture, create and build images that express and reflect the authentic you.
Authentic, even if our underwater pictures (unlike those in the CBS story) are shot on dry land in our climate controlled studio!
Water, water everywhere...
And now, I can speak from experience as a parent of a high school senior!
My daughter was a high school senior this year, and I can now officially relate to all the senior parents of portrait clients we've worked with through the years. The emotional ups and downs, the pride of accomplishment... it all affects you both as a student and as a parent of a student in ways you did not anticipate. Looking back, I know that your senior year of high school is something that only comes around once in life, and I just wanted everything to be perfect for her.
Unposed, and slightly irritated at her dad (me) for making her look up for a picture while she was getting ready for her big night.
As she stood at the podium giving her valedictorian speech to her classmates, I was completely overwhelmed with the enormity of what she had accomplished and that the night had finally come that she had been working toward, so hard for for so long. It was truly a once in a lifetime moment for her, and for us too. And one thing I never pictured myself doing at her graduation happened - a few times. I cried. Tears of joy and pride. Tears of a proud dad, subtle and (I hope) under the radar, but tears just the same. It's just one of those times when it's hard not to burst with the emotion of the moment. There are few moments in life that carry such a clear before/after line, but high school graduation is certainly one of them.
That night in particular, and this year - her senior year - in general have helped me understand the importance of what my wife Jennifer and I are doing when we book senior portrait sessions. One of my most cherished reflections of this year will be the portraits I shot of my own daughter, and that time I spent with her, reflecting her personality and interests back at her with images that I shot and edited and printed for her and for our family. It really reinforced to me something that I knew but hadn't yet been blessed with the opportunity to experience, and that is this. Senior portraits last a lifetime, and sometimes beyond - but they should capture the person you were when you were 17 or 18 years old. Not just the way the photographer wanted you to pose, but how you really were. Your personality should be evident in your senior portraits, and they should be art - not just 'pics.'
One of the great things about anyone's senior year is being able to look back and see who you were at that time, and for better or worse - that's exactly what senior portraits can do. We all know that growing up changes things. People grow and adapt, and evolve and become an amalgamation of all the experiences of their life, but your senior year in high school puts you at that starting line of adulthood. It's worth the time and investment to properly document.
In closing the intro, a final note - especially to our male senior portrait clients, who sometimes don't always want pictures and don't see the value in them as 18 year old young men with bigger things on their minds. Here's the thing guys, senior portraits often, while fully about you - the student, are not always for you. My pictures don't sit on my mom's bookcase to this day because I want them there. They sit there because they are important to my mom. There's nothing wrong with being a parent who appreciates the value of professional custom senior portrait art and strongly encouraging a reluctant student to suck it up and do it for mom (and dad)! We have won over many a student and gotten them to admit at the end that yes, they indeed did have a good time after all! I run into these young men all the time - now college students, college grads, and young professionals. I consider many of them friends and I hope our photography is part of their future plans as they grow up, get married and become dads themselves.
OK... on to the details!
So, you've read this blog and have decided to go with Shipman Photography for your senior portraits! Congratulations and thank you! The good news is that our senior portrait package average investment is well below the number tossed out in that CBS article I linked above, while the quality of work is at least as high. Pricing is provided upon request, but every package is custom and every package receives added value without added expense. So, what can you expect?
Sometimes simple natural light and a gust of wind at just the right time is all an image needs.
First, you can expect us to invest time in getting to know you and your senior. This can be a phone call or two, or it can be an in person free consultation at our Tulsa studio. During this consultation, we try to get to know what activities they are involved with. Hobbies, interests, personalities.... What kind of images do they like? What are they drawn to? Urban or country? Is there a vehicle or a pet or an important place you want us to involve in your shoot? We work with you - our client - to develop a plan that fits your family and your senior.
And sometimes, the perfect way to create the image you want is to go to work in the studio and build it in photoshop.
Once we have a plan, it's time to shoot! Our typical portrait session is 60-90 minutes, on location, where we shoot you in a variety of settings and poses. We prefer shooting in the 90 minutes before scheduled sunset, as this is typically the easiest, softest and most dramatic daylight to work with. A typical session yields around 150 shots, giving us plenty of options to show you.
Sometimes we break the sessions up into smaller ones to give homage to your sports or activities. These can be done in studio...
Or in one of the school facilities where you played or prepared for games.
We are known for a few specific styles. In particular, we are known for the photo-composites (green screen shots and digital environments). This literally opens up the possibility for any idea you may have from photo realistic to the intentionally surreal.
...Like going to the movies with yourself and yourself and yourself and yourself....
Or sitting in an art gallery featuring other portraits of yourself
Or throwing down a dunk, like you actually did in that game we didn't shoot!
In reality though, while these composites may be something we do that are genuinely unique and fun, it's just another tool in the toolbox, and the majority of our senior portrait work is simply the product of years of experience in on-location portrait photography, how to use natural and artificial light, framing the shots so the backgrounds look great and the composition is artistically pleasing - and interacting with our clients to get genuine reactions. We direct our shoots, more than pose them so that your reactions and expressions can be natural and authentic.
Daytime, nighttime, anytime is the right time for downtown sessions!
So the sessions are complete. What next? We set up a meeting at our studio, typically in the evening where you and your family can be our guests at a fun and exciting in person gallery review. We conduct these in person so that we can discuss the images in your gallery, editing options and get some ideas put together for what you may want to order.
One way in which we are very different from other portrait studios is that we do not ask you to pick out your selections on the night of the gallery review. We believe in giving you a lot of choices to look at in your proof gallery (typically 70-100 images), and working through all your selection that night is not realistic, so no pressure! Just sit back and enjoy the show.
The business side of these gallery reviews comes last, in which we rough up the details (number of images) for order, then we offer some incentives for payment and show you how to create your selections through your proof gallery. It is a sales meeting, but it is a zero pressure experience. Primarily we are doing a needs analysis to help find exactly the right fit for your family and your home.
Then, it's up to you! We encourage you to take your time and involve your family in making your selections, reviewing your online proof gallery at your convenience over the next week or two. Once you you have made the selections, along with any editing requests you may have (we can accommodate anything), we build your order.
We know some great places to shoot, but are always open to client ideas!
Anywhere your passions take you, we will follow.
When we build your order, that means we edit your portraits. Whatever they may need. Blemish retouch - no matter how severe the case - is easy and seamless, and when complete looks natural - not photoshopped (even if it is). We may need to remove something from the picture, add something to the picture, change the temperature of the lighting, light a dark thing, darken a too bright thing, add a sky, whiten teeth, remove wrinkles, create a sunset, change green foliage to fall colors and the list goes on and on. Whatever that image needs, it gets. Satisfaction guaranteed.
This process takes typically 4 weeks once we have received your selections.
Your complete satisfaction is our goal. It may be every business' goal, but it's a conversation Jennifer and I have every single time a customer leaves holding a new canvas or photo album, smiling from ear to ear. We simply could not imagine being anything else but your photographer. We are grateful to our clients and seeing and hearing how happy this art has made them is one of the things we truly love about our jobs!
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A close second to seeing these reactions in person is reading the unsolicited social media testimonials by our clients! Here are a few recent samples of social media screen captures of our clients telling their family and friends about their experience with Shipman Photography.
Denise Wood
Whitney Allen
jeremy cook
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These are humbling and rewarding and absolutely heartwarming. We cannot begin to express to our clients how grateful we are that they wanted us to document this once in a lifetime moment in time for their families. Thank you to them, and to you who are reading this blog, we hope that we can earn your business too.
We will be booking a limited number of seniors this year (50). While there is no magic time of year to shoot senior portraits anymore, we highly recommend that you book early - even if you are looking for fall dates. Contact us here to arrange your free consultation.
And, if you are interested in earning a free session and making some extra spending money, we will also be accepting applications from Tulsa area high school students from the Class of 2018. If this interests you, please read about this opportunity and click on the application link found in this blog... Shipman Photography 2018 Senior Rep Program
Thanks again for taking the time to check us out!
- Gregg
Many congratulations to the freshly graduated Class of 2017! With the conclusion of one graduating class however, a new one begins. And with that, we would like to welcome the class of 2018 for arriving at the starting line of their final year of high school. It would be our honor to be a part of your senior experience, creating artwork for you and your family that captures the authentic YOU, or your senior. Here is a link to a more detailed blog explaining our senior portrait services.
A big part of our senior portrait marketing plan has come to include our rep program. We believe it's an important component in helping us expand our services and introduce ourselves to a broader range of prospective clients, and we are looking for a few special 2018 seniors from Tulsa area schools to help us do that!
Here's a taste of some of our 2017 work. Please visit our senior portrait portfolio gallery for a closer look!
Shipman Photography has become an elite portraiture brand, both in the Tulsa market and beyond - with clients traveling from as far as Florida in 2017 for senior portraits in our signature style. We are committed to building unique and enduring wall art for you and your family.
Every year, we look at what has worked in our senior rep program and what has not, and we make the appropriate revisions. This year, we have a solid, simplified plan that will benefit our reps and incentivize them to spread the word about Shipman Photography while also delivering them beautifully edited images within weeks of coming on board. Let's get right to the details!
- Our Reps will have very little competition in their respective high school, with a maximum limit of 2 reps per school.
- Within two weeks of contracting our rep, we will conduct two separate photo sessions.
- Within a week of the second session, we will host you for a gallery review in our studio where we together will select 20 images.
- Within one week of the selection of your 20 images, we will have them edited, finished and ready for download and print.
- 50 4x6 referral cards (more when you run out) and a small photo book will be provided for you to use in promoting senior portrait bookings.
- This discounted package is $1200, and this amount is due in full by May 1st, 2018. However....
- Our reps earn a $300 credit toward their package balance with every booked and paid senior portrait client referral.
- Once the package has received full credit, we will add premium items of similar value.
- Additionally, we will directly pay our reps $100 per referral of booked and paid senior portrait clients.
- That is a direct value of $400 per every single referral with no upper limit!
- This is for referral of senior portrait clients only.
- To qualify for your credit and cash reward, your referrals will need to turn in one of your referral cards at their shoot and let us know you sent them!
We will have a lot of fun with this and will make it a point to stay in touch with you throughout the school year so we can provide you with anything you need to succeed and make some money while earning a full credit on your senior portrait sessions and edited images!
Who are we looking for? Outgoing reps who will enthusiastically represent our unique custom photography to their friends and classmates. Our ideal reps are well known and well liked among their classmates and will be trusted to represent our brand among the student population and their families.
Still interested?
Click the link below to fill out our online application for consideration as a 2018 senior rep. We will contact you and arrange a brief in person interview to further discuss this fun and rewarding opportunity.
We need to see 3 recent photos, and need links to any social media pages to determine reach and level of activity. We want to set you up for success with this! It’ll be fun, but there will be expectations and it will require some work!
Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
Gregg and Jen Shipman
Gregg Shipman Photography
Tulsa Photography Studio
5045 S. 79th E. Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74045
(918) 947-9601
[email protected]
Thanks for taking a few minutes to check us out!
There are a lot of photographers and designers in this market. I would like to introduce you to myself and make a brief case for why Shipman Photography should be your go-to choice for your athletic visual content. Shipman Photography offers a unique one-call service for your athletic department's visual content. How are we unique?
We blend 13 years of experience in live action sports photography and portrait photography with innovative, instructor-level graphic design and post production. This equips us to take care of everything from quick and efficient team photos for your yearbooks and websites to custom stadium graphics, banners, posters and branding - and everything in between. Within this blog are many examples, but for a more thorough look at our sports portfolio, check out our gallery. And here is a great place for samples of our picture day portraits, team portraits and action shots.
Here's what 3 time, 6A div II Oklahoma state champion football coach Loren Montgomery said about us after having worked with us on dozens of projects over the last seven years.
There are a lot of reasons Coach Montgomery felt that way about his experience with us, and it starts with quality. We take pride in doing excellent work - not only for the athletic department, but also for the coaches, the student athletes and their families. Not just shots or 'pics' but wall art and custom design. The quality of our work from the simplest picture day headshot to the most intricate senior poster or stadium graphic is something we take pride in. Our goals are to always surpass expectations and build something better than we did the year before.
Here's what Bixby Athletics Hall of Fame member, former cheer coach and current Bixby Athletic Director Stephanie Blackwell had to say about her experience with us.
The next aspect of our business that appeals to coaches is the efficiency of our picture day process. We work with coaches in advance to help them prepare the students and parents for a quick and painless process on picture day. We show up early, we are organized and we are accurate. On picture day we strike just the right balance of speed and efficient processes without sacrificing quality. We have shot tens of thousands of student athletes over the years and with that experience, we will minimize the intrusion into your coaches' time, without sacrificing the quality of the resulting images. Here's what Bixby High School's most famous alumnus says about working with us...
Sports photography for us is not simply not limited to one aspect of visual content. It means razor sharp live action game photos...
It means powerful, sideline candid images of coaches, players and fans that capture the emotion of the moment...
Of course, it means picture day portraits, team shots and beautiful products for parents.
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It means creating large group posters to commemorate annually updated achievements, such as Bixby's famed Club 225...
Our graphic design capabilities allow us to turn great photography and branding into banner projects for arenas and weight rooms.
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Through these various projects, we build personal relationships within the athletic departments. These often lead to premium services for those individuals, and we've shot several weddings for coaches and many dozens of senior portrait sessions for senior athletes. Many of those senior clients receive sports themed studio composite scenes that look more like NIKE ads than traditional portraits (along with traditional portraits of course).
We often take these same commercial photography style production techniques and apply them to senior posters and program covers, working with booster clubs and coaches to strike the right balance between art and individual visibility. For these cinematic scenes, we shoot the athletes individually - ensuring perfect focus and lighting, and then blend them into digital environments - using either original Shipman Photography or licensed high res stock files for our backgrounds. The results are stunning, emotive and eye-catching.
While there may be other photographers in the market who can provide excellent portraits, there simply are no others that can also do this...
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With the same one-call service, we can also design large scale indoor or outdoor graphics projects such as banners, floor graphics, wall murals and stadium graphics. One point of contact, from consultation to installation, or we can work with your print/installation vendors to provide them with custom fit designs. Click here to see our full gallery of murals, banners and related photo-design projects.
We offer all your large project visual content solutions - From original art studio designs....
To a massive back of the scoreboard branding successes.
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Incorporating original content, live action photography....
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...into stunning stadium graphics commemorating championships for all who compete there.
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Leaving room of course, to add new years as success grows. 2016 has been added for both football and band since this image was shot...
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Welcoming home a home town hero?
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Internally branding the walls of your weight room with mission statements and core values directed TO your student athletes?
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Or simply branding and beautifying campus walls and spaces?
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Whatever your project, we offer a consultative photography and design service based on building relationships with satisfied clients.
Thank you again for taking the time to check us out. We look forward to the opportunity to discuss how we may help you brand your programs and provide visual content to promote and honor your student athletes and coaches.
- Gregg & Jen Shipman
My oldest daughter, Cori, turned 19 last week. She has had lunches and dinners with friends and family - the last of which was last night with her closest besties. She asked if I would take some fun pictures of them before they headed out to dinner at El Guapo for her final birthday celebration - how could I say no?
These are just a sneak peak - nothing is edited, so no judging! Okay, so we started out in downtown Tulsa, just getting some basic shots of them all together....
Then I suggested they lose their shoes and get in the fountain -- which proved to be a good decision!
While their shoes were off and their feet were drying, they had the idea of getting some shots of them holding their shoes walking in the middle of the downtown street -- cause, ya know, that's something they do all the time! I loved these shots though....
Then we went up the street to a church I love to shoot at for another sweet group shot....
And then they start cracking up again! I guess it's a good sign they were enjoying their photo shoot!
The we finished our group shots with a super serious fierce girl shot. It was a trick to get them to all look serious and keep their eyes open (Madison)! :-)
I liked this shot, but really wanted to shoot from a low angle -- so I pulled a Gregg and got flat on the concrete to shoot up.... if only someone had gotten a picture of me doing this!
And then I finally go the shot that I wanted.... I can't wait to get this one into Photoshop and really make it a standout shot!
We took a few individual shots after that, so here are a couple of the birthday girl!
We had a great time doing this shoot and I think it really shows in the images we created! Now to talk my 14 year old into doing the same thing with her friends!!!! If you are looking for a senior picture photographer, or maybe to document a milestone birthday or event in life -- I'd love to talk to you about your photography needs!
~Jen
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We get excited about helping our clients improve their visual content!
Let us tell your story in images.
The vital need for a business to stand out visually in any branding effort is a trend that will only continue, and it only becomes more profound in younger consumers. In this recent article from INC. Magazine, the following statistics on visual marketing stand out dramatically.
- The average person gets distracted in eight seconds, though a mere 2.8 seconds is enough to distract some people.
- 81 percent of people only skim the content they read online. (Usability expert Jakob Nielsen has written that the average user reads at most 20 to 28 percent of words during an average visit.)
- People form a first impression in a mere 50 milliseconds.
- An estimated 84 percent of communications will be visual by 2018.
- Posts that include images produce 650 percent higher engagement than text-only posts.
- Tumblr's active user base has grown by 120 percent.
- Pinterest's active user base has grown by 111 percent.
- Instagram's active user base has grown by 64 percent.
In summation... the future of marketing and branding is image-based more so than text-based, and you have a very small window of opportunity to capture the attention of your audience with the graphic content you do choose to use.
For a full experience of our truly unique and unforgettable style of commercial photography, please visit our full commercial portfolio gallery here. Consultations and custom quotes are free, Satisfaction is guaranteed, and we work with a variety of print and installation vendors that can handle anything from business cards and websites to wall murals and billboards.
And for a further taste of the creative directions we are capable of, here is a link to our composite digital art portfolio.
Shipman Photography:
Photography and Digital Branding Services
1. On location head-shots & physical plant office shots (lightly edited (no photoshop) digital masters with usage/print release).
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Nothing fancy needed! Just sharp, clean, well composed branded images of you - doing what you do.
2. On location or in-studio professional portraits: Custom headshots, fully edited portrait digital master with usage/print release.
We can improve your visual branding with a variety of shooting and production styles
In studio or out, images that capture the brand you want to project.
3. Team Composites (studio portraits set into photo-realistic OR purposely surreal digital environments) - These are modular photoshop documents that allow for easy updating of team photos as team members turnover – without requiring the full team for updates. One person at a time, and backgrounds/settings can be updated and changed as well.
Editing includes a full portrait retouch as needed, and an accurate photoshop selection of each edited file. These can then be set into individual portrait scenes and/or a full team composite.
Team Composite scene building: We then design a branded setting and add edited team member files into the setting, blending for effect. Includes delivery of unrestricted team master file.
This modular file can be updated with the removal of departed team members, and/or the shooting editing and compositing of new team members, updating backgrounds, and delivery of updated master file.
Each group scene is shot individually, to maximize lighting, razor sharp focus and individual posing on each subject.
We are able to keep your team photo up to date, even as you add members!
Or maybe you just want to repurpose it as a Christmas Card project!
4. Product Photography:
5. Commercial Photography:
Storyboarding, staging, shooting, and editing specific cinematic scenes featuring talent using product or engaging in branding activities. Full service commercial photography branding scenes from concept to delivered print-ready art.
From vintage cool
...to out of this world.
We can take a group of lawyers and turn them into a picture perfect copy of a famous painting...
And then turn them into crime fighting super heroes a year later...
Contact us today for a a free consultation and see what Shipman Photography can do for your brand.
Winter, mild as it was, seems to be winding down. Spring has sprung and with that comes blooming things, green things and gorgeous weather. This means our spring senior portrait season is also gearing up. If you didn't get senior portraits done in the fall, it is definitely not too late. The spring offers a whole new opportunity for dozens of Shipman Photography senior portrait clients, and we would be honored if you would consider being among them.
Why us? In a nutshell, we are different. I asked a lot of young people why they chose us, and the answers all had one thing in common. We create work that stands out from the crowd. We are not generic. We are not predictable. Our portraits tell stories, and are not just "pictures." Often, they don't even look like senior portraits, as one might traditionally think of them. They are more memorable, more personalized and express our clients' amazing variety of personal individuality. Our motto is "Be Authentic," and that is our goal every time, all of the time, in everything we do. Our work is satisfaction guaranteed, and we are consistently rated 5 out of 5 stars in terms of value, quality and experience. There are cheaper alternatives, but there are more expensive ones too. Ultimately, our clients who choose us are fans of our work and know that this is who they had to call. We take that as the ultimate complement and value our clients' choice to trust us with these once in a lifetime moments more than can possibly be expressed.
How are we different? Several ways. Critically, we are the best studio in Oklahoma in terms of post-production, which begins with quality retouching - done in a way that never leaves you looking plastic and artificial. This is included in every portrait job we do. It's seamless, and it's perfect - every time. Natural, healthy skin texture remains, as do the things that make you unique (freckles, moles, scars etc. unless requested) but the blemishes? Gone. Flyaway hair? Gone. Shiny skin? Gone. Weird anomalies in the background? Gone. Boring, blown out sky? Replaced. And if we don't point it out afterwards, it looks as though that's the way the image was shot. Every time.
Another key difference is that we are not just picture takers. We are digital portrait artists, and that means we work with any setting, lighting or editing technique that we need to make a client's idea (or our own) come to life. Let's check out some examples of first semester portrait clients.
Sometimes, the image may call for something as simple as using a natural light setting to show off a portrait client's style and personality.
Take these head shots for example, whether in emotive high contrast black and white....
Or in vibrant color...
They tell a story, and capture a unique moment and energy. We might pull back a little and let the setting become part of that natural light story...
Or we may use natural light in a way that features the background as a critical element to the image.
Or, it may be that we need to use very subtle off-camera lighting to complete the ideal portrait - using lighting angles that compliment our client's individual features and fill shadows while blending natural and artificial light seamlessly.
Shooting our clients against bright backgrounds in colorful settings is one of our trademark "looks." This requires experienced off camera lighting techniques and post production skill sets that are not assets every studio possesses.
Sometimes, We need more "autumn" in our early winter shots, and that may mean giving life to leaves that have long since gone brown and dull.
We have a long list of interesting local locations to suggest, and are always open to our client's suggestions for location ideas of their own!
Downtown Tulsa at twilight is always a favorite.
Downtown Tulsa is such a beautiful and versatile place to shoot, we can always tailor it to fit your personality, or even your wardrobe.
But we know lots of cool places that are far from the urban jungle (and are more like an actual jungle).
Or maybe you are straight up country, and want your Oklahoma to show.
And while we may borrow some ideas from shoot to shoot....
They are never exactly the same. We are always looking for ways to mix up settings and poses even in places we've shot hundreds of times.
In our primary goal to express our client's individuality, it is not uncommon to involve some specific aspect of their personality, sport, activity or hobby. From gamers to athletes and from musicians to actors and everything in between, we are always looking for cool ways to involve these in your portrait plan, even if it involves splitting your shoot into two dates so we can do it right.
Maybe you are a three time All-State marching band clarinet player?
Or maybe you are an actor AND a guitar player?
As sports photographers, one of our specialties has been involving our student-athletes particular sports in their portrait plan.
In some cases, our athletes play two sports. Finding a shot for Cody here that features both football (background) and wrestling (foreground) as the sun sets on his senior career was a specific idea we had before the shoot. We always know when sunset is, from what direction and have a lighting plan for how we will maximize our clients' valuable time.
Of course, we don't have to cram our two-sport stars into one image every time, as we did with Drake who in one shot is reflecting on the end of a very successful football career culminating in 3 state championship rings....
And in another is looking into the bright spring morning light as he begins a new and final baseball season.
We are perhaps best known for digital art composite scenes that show up on program covers and stadium graphics. Frequently, we bring these same techniques to the table to create truly unique cinematic scenes for our portrait clients that no other studio in this region can.
The following images were all shot on green screen in our studio and were "built" in photoshop over the course of several hours. A lot goes into these images to make sure the lighting angles match the background, that the subjects are blended properly into the scene and don't feel photoshopped in, and most importantly that the perspective of the subjects match the digital environment. This is truly a unique service we provide without direct competition in this or in any nearby market. If you want something that is truly one of a kind, maybe one of our composites as part of a senior portrait package is for you. The possible scenes and settings are infinite, limited by nothing.
Possibly our best known image, it has been shared across the internet thousands of times, and has caused professional photographers to ask me how I lit him underwater. How his tie floated. How the refracted light played across him like it does on the bottom of the pool. All done in studio for this Booker T Washington swimmer who wanted to involve swimming in his senior portrait plan and was open to this idea - shot on green screen.
Or maybe we take the swimmer theme a different direction? Also Green Screen.
Maybe the client gives me a little direction like, 'maybe put her in an art gallery.' Well, why not let the art be other images of herself on a wall in the background, very slightly blurred by distance as the focus on her in the foreground is razor sharp? Green Screen.
Or maybe you are a cast member at the world famous Oklahoma Renaissance Fair and want to feature your character in the environment you always imagined her in - as part of your senior portrait session?
We don't force cheesy smiles in every shot. Sometimes a serious, or even non-camera-aware (looking away) shot is the perfect one to capture, but we always make sure there are a LOT of choices in your proof gallery. Many variations of a similar pose with different expressions so you can pick your own subjective favorites to fill out your order at YOUR convenience. That's right, we do not pressure you to pick out your images at your in-studio gallery review. Instead, we use that time to show off our work, reminisce about the shoot, discuss editing options and build a custom order for you - usually giving away free wall prints or photo books as incentives, and allowing you to take your time with your family on your own schedule to let us know which images to use on that order.
Our orders are digital. We set our order galleries up with the fully edited master files created from your selections (satisfaction guaranteed). The files are set to download directly to your computer or device along with a print release. We also set them up so that you can order professional quality prints directly from our website at our vendor cost (no mark up). $2.30 8x10's for example, and prints of any size can be ordered this way directly through your gallery.
We offer premium wall art: canvas gallery wraps, acrylics custom framing, photo albums and more.
We've got spring dates available, contact us now for a free consultation and package pricing graphic.
918.947.9601 [email protected] www.shipmanphotos.com
We also specialize in:
Family portraits
Weddings
Commercial Photography: Head shots, branding graphics and wall murals for your business, and conceptual scenes for your website or magazine ad.
Sports Photography: posters, stadium graphics, picture day team and player portraits, live action.
Our first three class program is for amateur or hobbyist photographers who want to learn how to manage their manual settings, compose great shots, work with natural and artificial lighting, and basic retouch & edits. Clinical terminology will be kept to a minimum and the focus (no pun intended) will be on explaining real world application of basic photography knowledge and building your skill set. It's a starting point, not a destination, but our goal is to get you comfortable with the range of different camera capabilities and ready to take better, more dialed in pictures.
After reviewing the Class information, click here to contact us regarding any or all of the classes.
Classes:
- Evenings 6:00 – 9:00pm (3 hours)
- Small Groups (avg 5 students)
- $75 per student per class or $200 per 3 class program.
- 3 Class Program purchase comes with a t-shirt.
Class 1 – Get it right in the camera. In addition to a workbook, this is a hands on class and you will be practicing what you learn with your camera as we go.
This Class will be held on Tuesday, February 21, 2017 - is limited to the first five people to respond. Additional dates will be added as demand requires.
Requirements: DSLR Camera and at least one compatible lens
Get off your auto settings. – learn your camera functions, manual and semi-manual settings. Learn how aperture, ISO and shutter speed work together and how/when to adjust them to get the best results. Small group benefit, tailored instruction to fit what the students want to learn to do ie. Sports, candids, landscapes, portraits, fine art, macro etc. Get sharper sports images. How to work with low light situations. When to use or not use flash.
Lens Basics and Depth of Field – How to read your lens specs. What kind of lenses work best for what application? What is DOF, and when do you want it to be shallow or deep? How to achieve each.
Learn the basics of composition. Perspective, background choices, rule of thirds, shooting angles etc. Don’t shoot like a tourist!
.JPG vs RAW. What are the differences and why does it matter which to use?
Watch out for GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) - DSLR’s are expensive machines and lenses are too. What off-brands can you trust? Which is the best place to spend your money – camera bodies vs lenses? What lenses do what? Nikon vs Canon etc.
Class 2 – Set up your shot. In addition to a workbook, this is a hands on class and you will be practicing what you learn with your camera as we go.
Requirements: DSLR Camera and at least one Lens
Subject presentation – posing portrait clients, shooting sports, how to shoot candid subjects (party pics, street photography etc).
Basics of lighting - Learn basic lighting philosophies: Natural light, camera mounted flash, bounce flash, off camera flash, reflectors, golden hour light, backlighting, edge lighting, Single light portraits, cloudy day vs sunny day – and what camera settings work best with flash photography. Lighting a dark subject against a bright background etc. Studio workshop.
How to pick locations – So you know what you want to shoot, but where? Avoid overused places, but know why they are popular. Some places you need permission, others you don’t. Location vs Studio.
Class 3 - Manage your Images: workflow, basic editing and how to protect them. In addition to a workbook, this is a hands on class and you will edit images as you learn.
Requirements: Laptop or computer with Lightroom and Photoshop installed.
NOTE: Adobe Creative Cloud – LR and PS for $10 per month. Highly recommended. Gold standard of graphics programs and all I use. Instruction here is assumed that you have a licensed subscription and updated versions of these programs.
Workflow – How to manage your photo files, and use LR to cull your choices down to a manageable number.
Intro to Lightroom. Basic adjustments, localized adjustments, advanced adjustments, batch edits, export options.
Editing in Photoshop. Basic photo manipulation and retouching blemishes.
Backing up – How to protect those images from a computer or hard disc failure.
Post-Program Follow up:
We encourage you after the program to continue your self-education. Classes are a great way to get started, but the internet is full of free high quality video instruction on lighting, shooting, posing, editing etc. Some instruction is great. Some is a waste of your time. Who to trust and how to find them? Facebook groups are a great place for constructive criticism and inspiration. We will start our own facebook group to encourage our students and offer ongoing constructive feedback in a private and supportive environment. All students gain access to this group as part of their participation in our programs.
This group will also present ongoing source recommendations, instructional graphics, cheat-sheets, links, blog updates etc. And follow up questions are welcome from all students. We are working photographers / designers and these classes are a supplemental outreach program. We are personally interested in your development and our students are not viewed as numbers. Our classes are intentionally small so that we may get to know everyone personally and do our very best to adapt our instruction to each and every student’s level of experience and individual interests.
Shipman Photos senior portrait client, on location in downtown Tulsa at twilight
Shipman Photography is a portrait photography company that specializes in custom senior portrait sessions. As parents of Bixby students, we have focused our marketing in the Bixby High School market for several years. In Bixby, we are in our third year as the official senior yearbook portrait photographers for all Bixby High School seniors, and also are the "picture day" photographers for all varsity sports at Bixby High School.
As a result of referrals by our wonderful clients and visibility of the work we've done for them, we've grown every year - expanding our market and attracting not only seniors from other Tulsa-area schools, but a growing list of out-of-state clients who travel to the Tulsa area for sessions with us at our Tulsa studio, or on location in our beautiful city.
To optimize this growth into area schools, we are launching a senior rep program which will incentivize and reward selected student representatives with cash rewards and their parents with discounted session packages up to and including a free digital premium session with Shipman Photography.
While Bixby students are well aware of who we are and what we do, we obviously are unknown to many other Tulsa metro students. Please take a minute and check out our senior portrait portfolio gallery to get an idea of what we are about, and allow us to introduce ourselves!
We specialize in several "styles" of photography and post-production, and our ability to customize your session to your unique personality and represent your activities, sports and hobbies in our portraits is unlike any other studio in Oklahoma. Our session work typically is shot on location in a variety of environments ranging from urban to ranch, river to stadium and everything in between.
We also shoot highly detailed and believable in-studio composite scenes with immersive backgrounds and digital environments that can put you into your world in a way that is genuinely unique.
Here is a Shipman Photos senior swimmer client, shot in studio, bringing new meaning to an "immersive" digital environment!
Our studio work is not limited to elaborate composite creations. We can also bring it down and create simple one-light black and whites to convey a more emotive and less visually busy scene.
Shipman Photos senior football/wrestling client in a complimentary "ring" session, shot as a gift to our 2 time state champ football clients.
These are just a few samples. Our "styles" are not limited to a few specialities or tendencies. We view each client as a new opportunity to create something new and unlike anything we've ever done before, and we invite our clients to bring their own ideas to the consultation process. A lot of our favorite images have their foundations in ideas our clients have brought to us. We love a challenge!
With Shipman Photos, the sky is the limit!
Again, we thank you for your interest in our senior rep program. There will be several applicants for a limited number of positions at several Tulsa metro-area schools. Please take the time to click on this link to fill out our rep application. We will review our applicants and reply to everyone personally. The full description of our program is laid out below.
Shipman Photography 2016-17 Senior Rep Program
Benefits for Student Reps:
- Earn $100 cash for every paying referral.
- Limited number of reps per school, so you will not be competing against classmates for referrals.
Benefits for Parents, Guardians and self-paying students:
- Earn a free 12 image digital portrait order (valued at $900)
- Earn additional printed materials once session credit has been earned.
Responsibilities:
- Be active on social media, sharing GSP content.
- Post all of your images on social media with links to www.shipmanphotos.com and associated social media pages.
- Use your 12 images throughout the school year as profile and cover pics.
- Receive 50 4x6’s of 2 images from your shoot to use in marketing.
- When referrals book, they turn in a 4x6 for you to receive credit.
- Must be on track to graduate. No arrests. No suspensions. Etc.
- 4 senior portrait referrals is our minimum expectation from our reps.
Details:
Our senior reps will initially pay a $150 session fee, like any client and sign a contract for purchase of a “digital gold” portrait package, valued at $900 – due in full by 5/1/17. We conduct your sessions early in the summer and fast track your edits so that you have them to market before school starts.
Our reps are expected to refer a minimum of four senior portrait clients.
The rep will earn $100 cash money for every single paid senior client referred. $50 at booking and $50 after the referral’s session fee is collected. There is no maximum limit of referrals, nor any deadline for booking them. Referrals who book and cancel are not counted as a referral, and any collected referral fee to the rep will be repaid.
As you refer clients, you will also earn a credit against your $900 package total.
* Referral #1 -$225 (1/4 of package total)
* Referral #2 -$225 (1/4 of package total)
* Referral #3 -$225 (1/4 of package total)
* Referral #4 -$225 (1/4 of package total)
At this point your portrait package will have been paid for through 4 client referrals. We want to continue to reward you for exceeding 4 referrals however, so referrals #5 and beyond will receive additional products including: coffee table books, canvas prints, additional image selections and more.
Qualifications:
There was a tremendous amount of initial interest in our rep program when we rolled it out on social media recently, and we received dozens of inquiries, so there is competition for a limited number of spots.
We market our portrait business in a variety of ways, so we need to make sure our reps are not duplicating our current efforts, and instead are supplementing them.
We are looking for photogenic, outgoing reps who will enthusiastically represent our unique custom photography to their friends and classmates. We will meet with our reps and talk to them about our process and products and have them well prepared to represent us and begin earning money.
Our ideal reps are well known and well liked among their classmates and will be trusted to represent our brand among the student population and their families. We do not want lazy reps that will be in academic trouble or find themselves in any violation of school rules. We think our styles of photographic art are unique and elite among our competition and so we want reps who will enthusiastically represent what we can do for their friends!
Still interested?
Click the link below to fill out our online application for consideration as a 2017 senior rep.
We need to see 3 recent photos, and need links to any social media pages to determine reach and level of activity. We want to set you up for success with this! It’ll be fun, but it will require some work!
Please feel free to contact us with any questions.
Gregg and Jen Shipman
Gregg Shipman Photography
Tulsa Photography Studio
5045 S. 79th E. Ave.
Tulsa, OK 74045
(918) 947-9601
[email protected]
Yearbook sessions for Bixby High School Graduating Class of 2017 are now closed.
We will be doing a picture day on campus for anyone that was unable to book a session from June through October so that they can get a picture in the yearbook. If you have any questions, please email Jennifer Shipman at [email protected].
We've had several inquiries recently from booster clubs, athletic departments, private club teams and individual players and families of players regarding our unique services which combine portrait photography, graphic design and digital art.
Pricing for these projects varies depending on print orders (sizes, materials and quantities) of course, but the main variable is time. When quoting or estimating a project, the amount of time spent producing the final product from consultation to installation is something we need to evaluate carefully in order to give our clients an accurate price. For this reason, we will not post our prices because they may vary quite a bit from project to project. Quotes are only generated after a free consultation and discussion of the scope of project parameters, budget etc.
When quoting project pricing to varsity athletic programs (either directly through the athletic department or through associated booster clubs), we typically will heavily discount our rates in exchange for marketing access to senior team members for directed senior portrait programs. Even at that, we will not be the cheapest bid you will collect. We will however, deliver the best and most unique product.
A typical project will include a group photo session or series of individual sessions for a group and 1-2 days of studio editing time before proofing the print-ready art to our client and finally placing an order with one of our multiple vendors for expedited shipping. A reasonable expectation for turnaround time on a project would be one month, but that may vary up or down depending on the time of year.
So, for specific project details, we'll need to talk. I can be reached at [email protected] or 918 232-5479.
Now for a variety of samples and a quick word about what went into them....
Team Schedule Posters/senior posters:
This soccer poster features dynamic "sports" lighting and editing, which is very popular with the athletes. All players were shot individually and composited into the shot after construction of a digital background.
This golf poster feature both a traditional group shots and composited individual shots. It also features a "cleaner" editing style (ie. less effects, single source natural lighting etc.)
Game program covers:
Like the schedule posters, these often feature senior athletes in composite or group shots.
While in the course of shooting these composite group shots, and as part of many of our senior portrait packages for seniors, we are able to create studio composites from these scenes of individual players for prints or posters.
Player Prints & Posters on digital backgrounds:
This is the same background and one of the individual shots from the team soccer poster above.
This one is actually not a composite. It's similar lighting, but it was shot in the volleyball/basketball gym with mobile lighting.
This was also shot on location with studio lighting and later edited to give it the popular dynamic sports look. Again, a shot like this can be as clean as any senior portrait photo we shoot (more on those below), but kids love the hyper reality of images like this for posters and sports prints.
The variety of background options when shooting in composite are endless. This was part of a recent senior portrait session for an athlete who is a member of the US national gymnastics team.
We can also apply the same production techniques to large groups
Large Group Posters:
This group was shot as-is, not in composite. It was also shot at 2:30 in the afternoon on a very sunny day. We thought the stadium lights and a nighttime scene worked better for the graphics and feel.
This group was shot in individual composite, using one shield, one helmet etc. Later put together into a digital scene.
We can also shoot and incorporate action shots into posters, prints, murals etc.
Action Shots:
And although they are action shots, we can still choose either to dynamically edit them...
Or simply render them in sharp, realistic detail as we do when submitting our weekly photojournalistic sports shots to the Tulsa World.
The topic occasionally comes up - someone doesn't personally care for the hyper-realistic look of some of the cinematic scenes we create. While that's very rare (usually this is exactly what draws clients to us), it is worth reminding prospective clients that any dynamic editing we do is an advanced production of an image or images. And we can shoot and edit in any requested syle - including clean, sharp wall-art quality portraiture. Since we market to sports-centric clients, a large percentage of our senior portrait clients are athletes. We strive to shoot them in settings that reflect their passions and interests as well as providing traditional (yet unique) portrait wall art.
Senior Portrait Samples:
From sports-centric senior portraits in uniform on the field, in the gym, on the court etc....
To traditional casual dress senior portraiture on location (downtown Tulsa, horse ranch farms for example, or anywhere you want)...
BHS 2015 senior basketball/volleyball player
BHS 2014 senior cheerleader
BHS 2015 senior baseball player
BHS 2015 senior soccer player
Metro Christian 2015 Senior trampoline gymnast
So, first and foremost we are portrait photographers. There is no limiting "style" in which we shoot or edit. There are some which have come to be somewhat signature styles, but we can shoot and produce any look you are looking for.
Sometimes our creations are designed for even larger venues than a living room wall. To that end, we also design large scale custom wall murals which can be installed on any surface from a curved wall to a cinderblock wall.
Murals and large format art:
Bixby Middle School
Home of the Spartans
Wall sections of the New Spartan Powerhouse Gym
You may have noticed in several of our graphics projects we have custom artwork such as spartan head shields, helmets etc. We can create dynamic graphics and logos from scratch. For example:
Sports Graphics:
And lastly, we also do your basic team & player portraits for photo orders, yearbook, websites, programs, etc. Currently we provide this service to all 22 varsity sports at Bixby High School. We set up our mobile studio lights for individual portraits to ensure optimum quality. The creative editing on these is kept to a minimum in favor of simple, classic, clean production.
Team and Player custom graphic prints:
Direct gallery links for more samples:
http://www.shipmanphotos.com/seniors#h24d9c0e5 - Senior portrait portfolio gallery
http://www.shipmanphotos.com/p466304173#h40f46e4e - Sports portfolio gallery
Contact Gregg Shipman Photography at [email protected]
Reference contact information available upon request.
References include:
Bixby High School Head Football Coach Loren Montgomery
Bixby High School Head Basketball Coach Scott Padek
Bixby High School Head Golf Coach Kem Morrow
Bixby High School Athletic Director Stephanie Blackwell
Bixby High School Activities Director Mark Chambers
In memory of my brother from another mother, Jeff James
You might be familiar with Pink Floyd's Album and single of the same title, "Wish You Were Here." It may mean something to you or it might not. Either way is ok. For me, it means something profound. This blog tells that story. The personal meaning of this song transcends the lyrics about missing a loved one, but more on that later. I'm getting ahead of myself.
About 3 and a half years ago, one of my closest friends was diagnosed with stage 3 lung cancer. The short version of this story is that this man fought cancer with enough energy, bravery and heroism to make Superman and Batman give each other embarrassed (we need to step up our game) glances. In the end, it may have been the very battle scars he wore on the inside and out - rather than his damnable disease that actually got him, but the sad, difficult truth is that he did pass away earlier this year as a result of his long battle against cancer.
This story is not about a once strong man withering away and becoming an object of pity however. This is the inspiring tale of a man who once stricken, became bigger than himself and larger than life. He inspired and uplifted thousands in this community in a way a healthy man never could've. The fact is, when I last spoke to Jeff on his birthday - five days before he passed - he was in a great mood, talking to me about the next big show we were going to put together. He never wavered in his belief that he would defeat cancer and return, in full voice to the stage. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me try to explain to you what kind of a man Jeff James was....
First, a quick disclosure about myself. No doubt many of you reading this account know me as a photographer. You may be a friend or a client or just someone who enjoys our work. No doubt, photography is my day job but I also play music and have played many songs on many stages over the last 25 years. I've played in several bands, but the one I'm best "known" for is Tulsa's own Dressed To Kill - a full on KISS tribute band. I play Gene Simmons in this band, and yes... it's a real band. We play. We sing. We dress in authentic costumes. I spit (fake) blood. I breathe fire. It's a really fun show and we've been doing this all over the region since 2005. This is an important detail because it's through music that I met Jeff and it's through music that we built a relationship and friendship over the years to become as close as brothers. "we was like peas n carrots" Jeff might say, quoting Forrest Gump. Jeff and I were not related, but we were both only children who often spoke to each other of the brotherhood we shared. If he had been my own flesh and blood, I could've loved him no more than I did and still do.
Dressed To Kill, A Tribute to KISS
My friend Joe Hillenburg and I founded Dressed To Kill and it's earlier incarnation "The F'n B" (thats for another future blog :) several years ago, going through several lineups until in 2005 we settled in to the lineup that still comprises the band today. Our first big show with this lineup was a series of mini-concerts played 3 per night, every weekend night in the month of October at the Castle in Muskogee's "Haunted Castle" event in 2005. The series of shows was great experience for the new lineup and we quickly found that what we might lack in musical tightness at that time, we more than made up for with chemistry and stage presence. It was LOUD. It was FUN. It was rock n roll.
Through DTK, we've made friends with literally dozens of incredible area musicians, played with some famous musicians, been featured on KISS's website and have played to crowds of thousands at big venues all over the region. It's been an absolutely incredible experience and my bandmates are my closest friends. That first event though in Muskogee, that will always be special for lots of reasons. For the sake of this story, let's narrow it down to one. We met this dude and his kid after one of the shows. Just a guy. Just a big ol country boy KISS fan. His kid thought we were KISS and we posed for a picture with them, just as we did for literally thousands of other dudes, ladies and little kids that month.
As a literary vehicle, this is referred to as foreshadowing...
Yep, it was Jeff and his son Keaton. It wasn't long after that evening that Jeff reached out to me as a fan of DTK and told me how much they enjoyed our show. It was kind of ironic because it turns out he was the front man of a new band himself. A band one of our roadies, Chris had been talking up as a great local rock n roll band that I needed to go check out. Jeff's band, the Horny Toads was just about the funnest band you've ever seen. I went to see one of their shows in the months following Muskogee and was just blown away by the party atmosphere and fun that everyone was having.
There was this incredible aura around Jeff as a front man and lead singer, and it just drew the crowd in. Everyone loved him and I was frankly kind of in awe of how easily he worked the room and owned his stage. It immediately made me feel a little bit like a fraud, hiding behind makeup and aping someone else's fame, shortcutting my way into huge shows without having paid our dues. But Jeff was quick to put an end to that way of thinking. He told me that a tribute band, a GOOD tribute band, is one of the hardest things to pull off convincingly and that we did. I was quickly embraced by the fans of the Horny Toads and more importantly by Jeff and his beautiful wife Shian.
While he was always the biggest rock star in any room he was in, he always built me up and he introduced me to people and talked about DTK. I wouldn't say he didn't have an ego (he absolutely did), but he was incredibly sweet and self-depricating about it. He never took himself so seriously that he thought he was any kind of big deal, even though he obviously kind of was. He knew full well that he owned his stage and was always at home in the spotlight he loved so much, but he was incredibly humble about his own skills off stage.
Over the next several years, Jeff became DTK's unofficial 5th member, forming friendships with all the guys in the band and helping us produce shows, market our act and hone our stage presence. He would come to practices, go on the road with us and just thoughtlessly cast aside his own well deserved rock star status to carry amps and be a glorified roadie for DTK because he just loved us and it was always a good time.
It was one summer during this stretch that I had the great fortune to be asked to fill in as the Horny Toads' bass player for a stretch of the schedule when Chuck, their regular bassist was unavailable. I was given about a week to learn 30 songs, but I said yes because I had been to enough of Jeff's shows to know it would be a blast! I also owed him so much gratitude for all the help he had been in promoting and producing my own band. I couldn't say no, and they say a photo is worth a thousand words, so here are a few that I'll let do the speaking for me. You tell me if it looks like Jeff and I had a good time sharing the stage with each other!
![GregJeffRockinout01[1]](https://greggshipmanphotography.zenfolio.com/img/s/v-10/p1905939590-4.jpg)
![Gregg%26Jeffrockin01[1]](https://greggshipmanphotography.zenfolio.com/img/s/v-10/p1991580058-5.jpg)
It was every bit as much fun as it looks like it must have been, and then some.
Rock and roll debauchery before, after and during each show. The thing that I discovered about Jeff then was that he was riddled with anxiety before a show, and would pace the room worrying that he was going to flop and disappoint people who were coming out to see us. He obviously never disappointed, but those were the expectations he put on himself. You can tell by the images above that Jeff was absolutely POURING himself into entertaining the room. When we would strike an appropriate back to back rock n roll pose on stage together, I could feel his body shaking with the power he was channeling into his lyrics and high energy stage presence. Perched at the front of the stage with one cowboy boot on his battle scarred Peavy monitor looking every bit the viking captain at the bow of his ship, soaked with sweat, Jeff gave 100% every single night and if you shared the stage with him, you knew you had to do the same.
It was one of the best summers of my life. I had so much fun, and it really gave Jeff and I the opportunity to share a stage and form this giant country boy rock star ego balloon so huge we could've floated it to China. But again, Jeff never took it too seriously or thought too highly of himself. In fact, every show contained a very personal homage to our friend Wayne Shomburg who was at the time (and is again now, please keep him in your prayers) on an active duty combat tour in Afghanistan. The band performed Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here and dedicated it to Wayne every single show. We didn't yet know how this song would come full circle, but it would.
The bombshell....
On New Year's Eve... the last day of 2009, I got a phone call from Shian. She wanted Jennifer and me to hear from she and Jeff personally, he had been diagnosed with cancer. Not just cancer, but lung cancer and it was stage 3. Late stage 3. In the months leading up to that revelation, dating back to the previous summer, Jeff had begun having problems with his voice. Doctors suggested allergies.... acid reflux.... and everything else. But it wasn't until December of 2009 that Jeff finally insisted that he felt something else was wrong, and demanded an xray. The results of that xray would change a lot of lives in the years to come, but at the moment it was Jeff and Shian's personal cross to bear.
They brought me into this knowledge along with several other close friends before the news was out and in the following weeks, I spent a lot of time with Jeff. Talking to him and making my own personal decisions.
You might think, if you've never had to actually DO it, standing by a friend with cancer is an easy decision. I'm ashamed to say it's not. It is easy to say you are... but to actually be there and watch someone deal with that, to understand that you could probably save yourself some future pain by backing off a little, it's sobering. It's gutcheck time. For me, the difficult thing was imagining Jeff's slow descent from a robust viking rock star into a withered shell of a man on his deathbed. I didn't want to see that or experience that path, but I couldn't NOT do it either. If that makes sense. I don't want it to sound like I struggled with the decision to get even closer to Jeff. I didn't. But I knew it had a chance of being incredibly personally taxing and painful.
I felt that way for about a day before Jeff's unfailing enthusiasm converted it's first believer (second actually, as I know Shian was always his biggest fan by far) in the mythos of Jeff, the indomitable cancer warrior. I wouldn't be the last. Over the next three years, thousands of people would learn what this man was truly made of. In the end of course it was (and still is) incredibly painful to lose my friend, but I cannot put into words what an honor it was, what an immaculate blessing it was... to be in Jeff's inner circle as he began what he considered to be a journey.
He never doubted he would kick cancer's ass. He was worried obviously and in he and Shian's private moments, I'm sure there was plenty of personal soul searching and tears, but Jeff never EVER publicly felt sorry for himself or allowed anyone to think of him as a victim. It was shortly after his diagnosis that Jeff came to me with an idea.
His idea was to do a serial photo essay of his battle against cancer. He knew he would physically change as a result of it and he trusted me to chronicle his journey in an unflinching, honest series of photo shoots. He wanted someday to be able to use it as his story. His triumphant tale of victory over cancer. He of course expected to survive and tell the tale himself, but he knew he might not. What I want to convey here is that he did in fact score a resounding victory over cancer. It took his life and his voice, but it also gave him a power and a platform to evolve into this transcendent character - offering selfless support to others suffering from cancer and drawing support and donations toward what became his favorite charity - Turn Tulsa Pink. More on this later...
For the first installment of his photo essay, Jeff met me at my downtown Tulsa studio. We shot this series mainly in black and white and the images were all candids I shot randomly as I had Jeff just begin talking (something never hard to entice him to do) and telling me his story. As he talked... I just snapped shots. Honest portrayals of his conversation. He knew he was at a crossroads and this was the starting line of a tough fight. The following images are from before he received a single chemo or radiation treatment.
The pics may have been candids, but he knew the camera was on.
Possibly my favorite picture I ever shot of Jeff.
Of course there were dick jokes... because of course there were!
Jeff also understood when to have an appropriate flair for the dramatic...
...but, as I said, he understood the battle before him and had many introspective thoughts on what was to come. This is the first time I've published these images, but to me they illustrate what this handsome and intelligent man was truly thinking that day.
This shoot was fun and light at times, heavy and thoughtful at others. But it cemented what I believed was a solemn obligation I had to my friend. I was looking forward to the day he could proudly show everyone how he beat cancer, and from that day forward I never doubted that he would.
We only did two more formal sessions. In the next one, his trademark blonde viking hair had begun to thin after a few months of radiation and chemo treatments. Jeff decided to get ahead of things and shave his head.
Looking the part of an action movie hero.
At this time, I was turning 40 and we threw a big party with several bands playing. Jeff's current post-Horny Toad project was a band called Monster Joe, and they played a full set at my party before yielding the stage to Dressed To Kill (unmasked!) and finally my new band Blackwood - featuring my beautiful wife Jennifer Shipman on lead vocals. It was such a beautiful evening and Jeff sounded great.
Jeff and Shi, Jen and me. Jeff got me a Gene Simmons action figure for my birthday, because of course he did!
Rocking... Rolling...
The next session we did, Jeff really wanted to illustrate two things. First, that he had earned battle scars from cancer. He wanted people to see that he had been scarred and affected by the disease. Second, he wanted to look cool. He felt good and wanted that to come across too. The point was, yeah he was taking some punches, but he was returning with as good as he got. Again we shot these in black and white and chose stark, post-apocolyptic locations.
The bump on his chest is where the doctors would inject the poison that fought his cancer. He wanted this to be seen in these images.
Badass...
Things went on like this for quite awhile. And the interesting thing was, Jeff never really publicly seemed to get sicker at this point. In fact, most of the news was pretty good. Treatments were adjusted and different things were tried. And over the next couple of years, there were a lot of great moments. Jen and I spent a lot of time with Jeff and Shi, as did many others in our group of friends.
Halloween parties
We like costumes... a lot
Jeff and Joe took me to a gay bar for my bachelor party....
And they were my my co-best men at my wedding
Jeff escorting my daughter at my wedding. He was so sick that day, and felt terrible. But you wouldn't have known it.
MORE Halloween parties!
And more great times with Jeff and Shi & Me and Jen
Things seemed to be going well for Jeff, the cancer had spread somewhat - never good news, but it so far had been arrested in his lungs and seemed more or less taking one step forward for any step back and Jeff was holding his own, fighting stage 3 lung cancer to a stalemate.
In late 2010, almost two years after his diagnosis, a project came up. Another friend of ours had cancer and had been fighting it for a few years. Amy Wiley, who had been a friend for years and was a huge fan of DTK, had been fighting bone cancer and had recently lost a leg to it. I was told privately by her sister that things were beginning to look grim for her. An idea struck me....
About a year before, DTK's frontman (aka Paul Stanley) Michael Truitt had been transferred in his company to Chicago. We hadn't played a show in a long time and were strongly considering calling it a day and hanging up the platform boots. With Amy's news, I hatched this idea to do a fundraiser private party kind of thing and fly MIke back in to perform. This idea really began to gain momentum over the next week and I realized it would be a more effective fund-raiser if I got a cancer charity involved. I contacted several who wanted me to jump through all kinds of hoops in order to get their interest and support. It was incredibly discouraging, seeing the business side of charities in this light... and then I called Judi Grove with Turn Tulsa Pink.
I explained to her what I was doing, and by the end of the call she had booked the show into the Cain's Ballroom and had assured me several TV and radio interviews. The net result was a huge party at the Cains with Amy as the guest of honor. Jeff was the emcee for the evening and fronted the opening band (Alien Blues Alliance). He also sang backing vocals for DTK off stage. It was, simply put, Jeff's finest hour and it was for a packed house.
Not sure it was sold out, but let's just say it was a pretty dang FULL house that night...
Nothing beats the feeling of playing in a rock concert at a full Cain's Ballroom.
Again, as at my wedding, he was sick. He had nearly lost his voice and was very weak and shaky due to treatments and side effects from treatments. But as he had years before when we shared the stage as Horny Toads, he poured himself into his many rolls that night and just absolutely dominated. As a good Oklahoma boy growing up in Baptist churches, I've been to a few tent revivals. Let me tell you, I've never seen such purity of spirit, such a feeling of spiritual healing as I did that evening. Amy was lifted from her dark place and had the time of her life. But my enduring image from that evening occurred off stage. In the shadows, where nobody could see the rock star. In such a sweet and thoughtful moment as you would ever hope to see, Jeff shared a private moment with Amy. One cancer warrior to another. In these images, you can see the fear and pain in Amy's face but at the same time you can literally feel the comfort and love Jeff gave her as he hugged her and kissed her forehead.
Jeff and Amy
What a guy...
It was Amy's night, and Jeff made sure she knew he knew that.
But, of course, we had a great time too. Jeff got to do what he loved more than anything, sing and perform. And we got to hang out backstage at one of America's finest and most storied music venues.
Amy and I doing a live interview on Channel 2
Me having my mind blown at the energy this "sick" man had. He ran circles around the rest of us that night.
Raquel Belch - Jeff built a fire breathing dragon for DTK's stage show because OF COURSE HE DID.
Jeff James, aka Rocket Man, aka Triple J fronting Alien Blues Alliance at the Cain's.
Amy passed away a few months later. It hit me hard and it hit Jeff hard. It was difficult for him to face the mortality of her funeral, so he stayed home from it and felt very guilty for missing it. It was really difficult for all of us, but Amy's family assured me many times over, that night, the "KISS for Amy" concert was an oasis in her nightmare of cancer. It put Turn Tulsa Pink on the map and it established the legend of Jeff James for all the right reasons.
Our other band Blackwood continued to play some pretty cool shows. We opened for REO Speedwagon and of course Jeff was the head of our production crew and got to meet one of his heros, Kevin Cronin. The REO guys were so awesome, they signed this album cover for us to give to Jeff.
Jeff with his REO Speedwagon trophies
During these days, Jeff became a standard guest singer for Blackwood. We had a mini-set that was all songs Jeff would sing. He didn't always have the lung power to do more than 4 or 5 songs, but he would do those 4 or 5 at maximum firepower. One of the songs that became a standard for him to guest sing with us was borrowed from the old Horny Toad days - Wish You Were Here.
It had taken on a new meaning, as one night Blackwood was playing a St Patrick's Day show at the Blue Rose when we got a call - Amy had passed away. Now, the song was dedicated to our friend Amy, a young mother who was taken far too early and whose signature event had changed us all. I've never played that song with a dry eye since.
One More Show...
In what proved to be Jeff's grand finale', we had another charity event come up. This time it was produced by close friends of Jeff's, Chris and Angela Glidden and instead of cancer, this time it was for the Make a Wish Foundation. Rock a Wish was a new project for Jeff and he poured himself into it. He was feeling good and was ready to hit the stage again. Not content to simply front a band and sing a whole show for the first time in years, he decided in typical Jeff James fashion that he had to create a monster of a stage show and assemble an incredible lineup of talent. Jeff decided to start an Alice Cooper tribute band called the Billion Dollar Koopers.
He build a dozen or more elaborate stage props, designed and constructed his own costume and even involved a live 6' boa constrictor. Backup singers, the works and he practiced until he had a finely honed show that frankly, was a bit of an intimidating act to follow!
From a promotional photoshoot we did for his band, The Billion Dollar Koopers
Well our fears were well founded because if I'm being honest, the Koopers smoked us that night. There were some sound system issues and simply put, they rose up and put on a killer show and in my opinion, we struggled a bit. Jeff was, as he was after the KISS for Amy show, absolutely wrung out and exhausted, but he was on Cloud 9 at the same time. It was things like this, I firmly believe, that fueled his battle against cancer. He told me several times that it was the support of his close friends and the desire to be on stage again that gave him so much strength, but all I know is that everything he touched in those years turned to gold, if the worth of human spirit has a dollar value.
The way these events brought people together and united so many people was just incredible to witness, and the thing that really made it work is that Jef was so genuinely and sweetly ignorant of how powerful a figure he had become that he never changed. He was always the same optimistic, fiercely loyal, creative genius that he was before he got sick. He just became... bigger than all that, and sucked hundreds of people into his orbit. These new platforms introduced a lot of new people to Jeff and they found, as we all had, that even briefly meeting Jeff was a profound experience for people.
He was a blur of motion and energy all night, climbing ladders and singing lead for 90 minutes - basically on one lung.
Love this pic of Jeff and Shian, back stage at "Rock a Wish."
Unfortunately, it wasn't long after this show that cancer played it's cruelest card yet for my friend Jeff. It took his voice. Jeff had this rich baritone voice that was just perfectly suited for rock n roll, but few people saw the fine control he could command over it when he sang some sweet acapela love song to Shian. I've heard him flawlessly cover songs from both the Brian Johnson and Bon Scott years in AC/DC. And I've heard him sing Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On," and everything in between, but his favorite singer was actually Elton John. Hearing him sing Elton's love songs to Shian was the kind of thing that always made you know true love exists.
As a result of his treatments, or the size of the scar tissue from the now dead tumor in his lung, or really... who knows exactly why? One of his vocal cords became paralyzed and he was stricken with what amounted to permanent laryngitis. He couldn't sing anymore, and that really became depressing for him at times.
Not all the time... But he confided in me how frustrating it was during cookouts at Jeff and Shian's. The evenings spent philosophizing in the hot tub and on the back patio. Those countless nights spent in the man-cave garage with the only other true love of his life (a distant second to Shian) - his "Blue Meanie" 1970 Olds 442. It was THESE nights that he occasionally let his guard down and you could see how after enduring all these treatments, it was the loss of his voice more than the cancer itself that weighed heavily on him.
Still, he never doubted that the voice would come back. He never stopped talking about the next show and he never became a pitiable cancer victim, wasting away.
What has two thumbs and is tougher than cancer? This guy.
Jeff, Chris Glidden and me. Jeff was never weak or frail. This was maybe a month before he passed away.
In the end, Jeff developed some complications - probably from the scar tissue in his lung, and after fighting cancer to a stand-still for 3 years, he passed away. Just like that. We were there for his birthday and 5 days later, I found myself preparing a statement for he eulogy. I'm proud to say that I was a friend of Jeff's. He told me unashamedly on many occasions that he loved me and that he considered me to be his brother. So many times, something is left unsaid or undone, but in Jeff's case, the one thing that I feel really good about is that the last time I saw him, I hugged him and told him I loved him. Not always the easiest thing for men to do or say to each other, but we are talking about this guy....
Herschel the cat: "man, Jeff... you really look gay here."
Jeff was the funniest guy I've ever met. I've always said you could sell tickets to a dinner at Jeff's house because between he and Shian and their three boys, the one liners and good natured jabs were constant and hilarious. Your face hurt when you left Jeff's house because you were smiling and laughing the whole time.
Speaking at Jeff's funeral was the most difficult thing I think I've ever done. I got through it somehow but had dozens of breakdowns that day. I still have them sometimes. The thing is, when I turn on a classic rock station now, every other song seems to be one I played with the Horny Toads, or one he sang with Blackwood, or at least a song from a band he's talked to me about. All these songs elicit different emotions and depending on how they hit me, they either make me laugh or they choke me up a bit. But there's that one song...
Wish You Were Here.
This song now has a new meaning. It still is dedicated to Amy. And Wayne is now on another combat tour, so it has regained Jeff's original intent for it's use in the set list, but now it obviously is also dedicated to Jeff James.
Jeff and me, hanging out backstage, pre-show at the Cains.
So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
Yeah, cookouts at this guy's house were fun.
Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
I can't tell you how much I miss things like this.
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.
There are a lot more stories that could be told. I could tell you about the time Jeff produced a DTK show in Oklahoma City after being bitten earlier in the day by a venomous snake (Cottonmouth). He shrugged it off and said it was nothing. I could tell you about the time he got his truck stuck up to the doors in mud and we had to figure out a way to get it out. I could tell you about how he helped me install custom wall murals because I was too much of a chicken to go to the top of the ladder.
But instead, I'll take Jeff's advice and not play every song they want to hear. Leave em wanting a little more, he would say. And so with that, I leave you with this image.
Miss you, Rocket Man