Driving Toward the Dream of Hope Beyond Hope, Part 3

My first day in Oklahoma was hot, but the sky was actually a clear blue in spite of the wildfires miles away. I had been scheduled for a photo shoot in the morning and then would have my first recording session of the week in the afternoon. My photographer’s name was Bo, and I had requested a natural setting for the photo shoot. One of my favorite places to be is just about anywhere that there is good hiking. I enjoy exploring the beauty of God’s creation and often times just naturally end up in prayer or worship or both because of how strongly I often sense His presence in such a setting. In fact, it was in such a setting that I had ended up asking Jesus to be my personal Lord and Savior many years ago. So it seemed just as natural that I would have this type of setting for photos that would be used in conjunction with my CD project, Hope Beyond Hope.

Even 9:00 in the morning was starting out warm at roughly 70 degrees. But the park that Bo and I went to had plenty of cooler places to shoot in the shade. It’s amazing how much cooler the woods can be even on a hot day. We had a great time chit chatting in between locations in the park, and since photography is something of a hobby for me, we also had a few stories to share about our experiences and adventures. I think my favorite was one that he told about a Black Widow that had made its way into his home. He stopped and took the time to photograph it before killing it. I laughed and said, “That must be the mark of a true photographer. You stop to photograph a dangerous spider before actually killing it.”

As the morning progressed, even the woods got hotter, and I was really interested to try to cool down with a shower before my recording session in the afternoon. I cut things pretty close between that and getting a quick bite to eat, but it all worked out okay. The vocal recording area was interesting. There is a large room with three soundproof booths attached to one of the walls. The booths are about the size of a walk-in closet, and that’s where it all began from the stand point of laying out the vocals. The staff affectionately and with tongue in cheek refers to them as “home” for the person doing the singing. “Home” also had a tendency to get hot after singing in there for a while. I kicked off my shoes for the sake of comfort and told them I was, “making myself at home in my new home.” This became something of a running joke when they saw it. It got to the point where when they’d ask me if I was ready and I’d say, “I’ve got my shoes off and I’m ready to sing.”

I got through three songs the first day, which was less than I had hoped for, but resolved to make sure that I got plenty of rest, relaxation and sleep for a more productive day the following day. It helped that my music producer, Joshua, stated that he wasn’t worried, and that he felt that things went well for our first day’s work. He encouraged my plan for the remainder of the day. In terms of the quality of what we’d accomplished, I was in total agreement that it was a good first day’s work.