Oak Tree Photography bio picture

  • The World Is My Studio

    The summer I turned seven, my brother won a camera in a raffle. Uninterested, he handed the camera over to me. But I fell in love with the camera. The rest of the summer, the camera went everywhere I went. Around the house, in the yard, to the playground and the pool. I took pictures of my brother and sister, our dog, our friends in the neighborhood. And I took more than snapshots. I had them pose. I arranged them on the slide at our playground. Or on the grass around the tent we set up in the yard. And I thrilled to see the prints when the roll was developed. Other families have all their childhood pictures taken by a parent. But in ours, the son was taking pictures, too. My family treasures the pictures I took as a seven year old.

    Fast forward to today. I've long since become a professional. My gear is much more than a cast off raffle winning. And my training and experience have matured my style. Now I hold the prestigious credential of Certified Professional Photographer from the Professional Photographers of America! But what was true way back when is true today: I am still head over heels in love with photography. I still do all of my photography of people: either in my outdoor studio on the grounds of the Milam-Clark estate in Claremore, Oklahoma, or in my indoor and outdoor studio in the Belvidere Mansion, also in Claremore. And people come to me from all around Rogers County and Tulsa for the images I can produce for them: Owasso, Broken Arrow, Jenks, Bixby. You name the place, I've had clients from there come to Claremore for my portrait photography. And, most of all, I still thrill to deliver beautiful prints to families, to watch their eyes light up with joy. I know they're going to treasure their portraits for generations to come. And that makes me happy.

    Tom Launius, CPP
    Oak Tree Photography

Madison at the Belvidere

Thursday, May 2, 2013 Posted inPhotography,Senior Portraits

I sure enjoy my studio space in the Belvidere Mansion here in Claremore, I have a lot of fun using all of the Victorian wallpaper, rugs, and furniture as backdrops, as well as taking advantage of the the massive windows for gorgeous light. One day recently, as a way of exploring some of the many ways the Belvidere can serve as a portrait space, I had Madison meet me there. We spent several pleasant afternoon hours taking beautiful portraits, the evidence of which is displayed at the bottom of this post. I photograph a lot of seniors in and around the Belvidere, and they always have a good time. The mansion is so large and there is so much variety from which to choose, their pictures always turn out unique!

Tom Launius
918.729.0500
tom@oaktree.pro

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Annie Get Your Gun

Thursday, May 2, 2013 Posted inMusic,Photography,Senior Portraits,Western

Did I ever have fun taking pictures of the Claremore High School production of Annie Get Your Gun. This performance was held at a fantastic venue: the Robson Performing Arts Center. One of my favorite images is at the bottom of this post. If you would head over to my Facebook page you can see a wide variety of awesome images from the performance. While you’re there, maybe you could “Like” my page!
I had the time of my life taking these pictures. Years ago, when I was in college and in the early years after my graduation, I was in a boatload of musicals and operettas and operas, and taking these pictures brought back fond memories. I hope that you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed taking them!

Tom Launius
918.729.0500
tom@oaktree.pro

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First Blossom, Redbud

Saturday, April 13, 2013 Posted inFlowers,Photography

Above these words you see a closeup of a redbud blossom. Now, this is not just any redbud blossom: three years ago, when we moved to Claremore, I planted this redbud. It was a gift from the yard of a new friend. The tree was a volunteer, you see, and not needed where it came from. It was out of place, in other words, so, I “adopted” it. It went into a prime location in our front yard. A slender young thing, it has struggled to survive in the tough summers we’ve been having. It almost didn’t make it through last summer. But, I dragged a hose across the yard, laid the mouth of the hose at the base of the tree, turned the water on at a trickle, and let its thirsty roots drink long and deep. I didn’t give it a drink just once, of course, but every other day, I would drag the hose across the yard and bring water. The tree hung in there—barely—but it never has blossomed. Until this morning. Out on a Saturday morning, early, to plan my springtime projects, I went over to the tree, saw that it was beginning to leaf out, then noticed a a fleck of color. The tree’s first blossom, ever! What a thrill. Maybe I shouldn’t say this, being as this is my portrait web site and all, but if I could make a decent income from taking only pictures of flowers, if I could only do so…I’d do it! But I can’t. So instead, what I do is take pictures of people as if they were flowers: precious, irreplaceable flowers, flowers whose fleeting beauty deserves to be remembered and embraced for all time.

Tom Launius, CPP
tom@oaktree.pro
918.729.0500

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A Classic Child’s Portrait

Thursday, April 11, 2013 Posted inChildren,Photography

A woman’s first classic portrait should be when she turns four, has left infancy behind and is entering childhood. In the case of Emmie, whose portrait you see here, her first classic portrait took place when she was still three. The fact that she was not quite four made creating the portrait a bit more challenging, since a child who is still three is at a stage of life such that spontaneity rules: standing in one spot, looking in one direction, holding your body in one position do not come readily. I had to make sure everything was one hundred per cent ready to go with the lights, with my camera, with where she would be standing, since I knew that we would only get three or four minutes of shooting before she was “done”. And let me tell you, when a three year old is done, they are done, and there is no getting anything more out of them! Not only did I need to move quickly, but I needed to draw just the right smile out of her . The usual schtick I do with children, with lots of silliness and pratfalls on my part, would draw too big of a smile, I wanted more of a  “Mona Lisa” smile. So I toned down the schtick, until the slightest, half-shy smile came to Emmie’s face. When I captured a series of exposures, and our window of time had passed, I knew we had created that classic child’s portrait, the kind that will stand the test of time and the changing fashions of every era, that Emmie will still be displaying in her old age, as a testimony of who she was in the blush of  childhood.

Tom Launius, CPP
tom@oaktree.pro
918.729.0500

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A Second Chance

Saturday, March 30, 2013 Posted inPhotography,Senior Portraits

Okay, okay, you and I both know how these photography web sites work: the photographer cherry picks the best images from the best sessions, then writes glowingly about how wonderful it was: how perfect the client, how spectacular the location, how passionate the photographer, yada, yada, yada. And, certainly, my web site serves up plenty of that. But if that was all my web site offered, you would begin to suspect, not so much that I was perfect, but that I was not real. So, now is the time for true confessions: I make mistakes. And, on a senior session with Matt, I made the ultimate mistake: I lost the images. That’s right, I lost them. All. I had just gotten back from the session, I immediately went to back up the camera’s memory card to my computer and, I made a thoughtless mistake in how I inserted the card into my reader, and all the images were wiped off the card. I could have died. Literally. Died. One of the hardest calls I’ve ever had to make was to Matt’s family to fess up. To my everlasting gratitude, they were gracious. We rescheduled for the next day. And, all the pictures turned out as well, or better, than the originals. Was I ever relieved. Here is one image from that “make up” shoot. Matt is a Claremore High School senior of 2013, and this was taken on the campus of Rogers State University, where he will be attending this fall, with a four year scholarship, I might add. Way to go Matt!

Tom Launius, CPP
tom@oaktree.pro
918.729.0500

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