My latest “Together in Tulsa” Couple-Zach & Jennifer

If you don’t already know, I have a bi-monthly column called ‘Together in Tulsa’ for the regional paper, ‘This Land Press’.

My column features unique couples from Oklahoma. And because I am so weird, the photos I take of each couple typically end up a little bizarre-or ‘different’-as my dad would say.

My latest couple were the Mangialomini’s (pronounced “Man-gee-uh-low-mini”). Zach and Jennifer Mangialomini are wonderfully approachable, quietly confident and recall a pretty hilarious and bizarre back story. Jennifer began as an aethist, transferred into a cult and finally found God. Zach was a slightly disillusioned Christian who-according to himself-struggles with handling social cues.

Together, the couple have three beautiful children and a marriage founded on something solid. Check out my whole article here at: This Land Press.

My Latest Article-Ken & Shelley Umezawa

The Umezawa’s found their way into my email inbox via a friend of a friend of a friend. After a few back and forth conversations, they were soon being interviewed in my home and photographed in my backyard.

Their story is remarkable, as she is a cancer survivor and he-her support system.
Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Shelley assumed the lump seen in the mirror was nothing more than a cyst and was shocked when the doctor told her otherwise. She remembers allowing a few tears to slip onto the exam table, and then slowly walking to the lobby where her husband, Ken, had been waiting.
“The look on her face distracted me from what I was thinking,” recalled Ken. “She looked shocked and terrified, which isn’t a look you see from her very often. That made it real.”

You can read the rest of my article about Ken & Shelley Umezawa here, at This Land Press.

The Chicken Man

I shared with you just a few days back about The Chicken Lady that I met while doing research for the article I wrote called, Urban Chicken Farming, for This Land Press. I met several urban chicken farmers inside of Tulsa’s city limits and began to understand the movement to raise one’s own chickens within the city.

This man lives just a few blocks from me, so I biked over to interview and photograph him. He thought I was “pretty green” for doing so. In reality, I felt like a little exercise and I hate driving if I don’t have to.

The hens roamed the entirety of the back yard, but escaped to the coop at night to steer clear of any potential predator’s mouths. What are they-chicken or something? Heh heh.

The chicks clucked around, avoiding surly confrontations with the cats, the dogs, bees or anything else this man had going on in his backyard. It was a real zoo.

Raisins treats allowed me to get up close and personal with this golden lady. So pretty. So clucky. So demanding of the raisins.

After a couple minutes interviewing the Chicken Man, he offered me some eggs to go. I cooked a couple up for lunch, shocked by the color deep orange color of the yolks. These backyard eggs were different than any store-bought-even the organic, cage-free eggs. And they were tasty. Very tasty.
The odds are that I will be housing some chickens next year. I am slowly becoming more and more a fan of this idea. Now, to I just have to get the neighbor’s dogs on board with this idea….

The Latest Couple

I have a column called Together in Tulsa in the regional Oklahoma paper, “This Land Press”-which is both online and in print.

Writing this column is really the coolest job.

I get to invite strangers into my home, ask them all sorts of probing questions, dress them up in weird costumes and then photograph the incident. Later, when they’re gone, I sit around in my jammies and sip on a glass of red wine while I sort out all the information in order to write a story about them.

And, I get paid to do this.

So, here’s the latest couple that I wrote about, Aaron and Jessica.
 

And there’s plenty more where that came from. But, I’ll let you in on a secret. I do have my favorite couples. Here are a couple of my favorites couples, coupled:

Jeff and Amber Whitlatch

And Stephen and Esther Hill.

If you have a few or more than a few minutes, read Together in Tulsa-I recommend sipping a glass of wine and wearing jammies as you do so.