I recently had an opportunity to visit my alma mater in Atlanta, GA where not so long I earned my Bachelors of Science.  Oglethorpe University is a great, small 4-year University founded in 1835 and then moved later from Savannah, GA to Atlanta, GA.  They have churned out many a political science major, accounting major, and biology/pre-med majors, but most memorably, in 2004, they allowed a little thin-framed Business Major to walk across the stage and make a little speech… If you have not guessed yet, I was referring to myself at the end there.  Well, in addition to learning the skills needed for success in business, I took my first photography class here.  It was in that class that Professor West told me that I had a “good eye.”  Don’t y’all know, I ran with that!  But truth be told, I believed that I had a knack for photography even before Professor West’s encouraging words.  Back in my Freshman year, I had a short stint as a photographer and column editor for “Word on the Street” in the school’s newspaper, and then by Senior year, my peer Bernard Moore convinced me to join him and few others on revitalizing the school’s yearbook, which had not created a new publication the entire time we were there.  On the yearbook staff, I was one of the photographers and I spent my fair share of time working on page layouts, which all meant long hours in the Yamacraw office in the basement of Emerson Hall (not that exciting).  Anyway, I never knew then that I would be using some of these same skills now in my own business venture (thankfully my skills in both areas have improved dramatically).   My advice to you is to not despise the day of small beginnings, and be open to your future because MANY are the PLANS of a MAN’S heart, but it’s only GOD’S PURPOSE that PREVAILS!  I wholeheartedly believe this, and I feel my life is a testament of this!

Anyway, I wanted to share with you some pictures of my recent trip so that you too can see where it all got started…. By the way, OU always had the most beautiful campus in my humble opinion… I never wondered where all of those fees were going (until they got the new food service company our Senior year)!

Now I am ALWAYS a fan of portraying one’s self in the BEST possible light, but today, I am willing to show you some of my very humble beginnings.  Here are some throw back pictures from 2000 and 2001 during my freshman year of college.  Back in those days, I shot with a nice little Pentax point and shoot camera.  It did the job for me!  But you can still see that I’ve come a LONG way (thank God for digital SLR’s)!