Open Mic Night

For the past two days I've been watching my favorite photographer, Jasmine Star, prep for a wedding through creativelive.com live video stream. Her big advice to photographers is to figure out what it is about you personally that sells you -- what is it about your personal photography style that works to your advantage.
I've been putting a great deal of thought into this and I've decided that one of my biggest advantages is my desire to tell a story -- the journalist inside of me. I'm not satisfied with snagging individual moments but I want to also get the moment leading up and the reactions after -- I want the scene to be recreated in picture form before you when you look at the pictures. So, the goal is now to keep finding the people who are looking for a photojournalist to capture their story.
For now I'll continue to tell the stories around me! Wednesday night was Open Mic at the UNT Baptist Student Ministry, a student organization I've been an active part of since my first semester of my freshman year of college. This week is First Flight Week for thousands of new freshman at UNT -- and it was just this week that it dawned on me that it's not called First FLIGHT week at every college . . . it's because we're the Eagles (duh). Thanks for helping me figure that out, cousin Joshua.
Anyway, I am constantly blown away by the amount of sheer, raw talent that walks these Denton streets, and was again reminded of that on Wednesday by the mix of rapping, crooning, strumming, and stand-up that made up Open Mic Night.



Dustin Aguilar (he's actually the the new campus missionary for international students at UNT -- excitement!)





Leighton Pustejovsky

Tyler Collins

I wanted to end the post with my dear friend Brittney Bell. This is how she tells a story, and not just when she has a microphone and a captive audience. No, she uses all these expressions on a regular basis, and I love her for it.