2009 Oklahoma State Fair opens Thursday

Jim Beckel been a member of The Oklahoman's photo staff for 25 years. During that time, he and his cameras have covered virtually every type of news and feature story imaginable, traveling to all regions of Oklahoma to document events and provide photo coverage to accompany reporters' stories.

The greatest benefit of his job is the opportunity to meet a wide variety of wonderful people, from all walks of life, who allow him to share their stories through his photos. His career as a photojournalist has allowed him to understand that covering the plight of a homeless veteran is every bit important as photographing a high-ranking state official speaking about policy matters.

While it's true that I am employed by The Oklahoman, I try to be constantly mindful that the person I am actually working for is the reader of our newspaper.

Director of Photography Doug Hoke started his career at The Oklahoman and Times as a part-timer December 1976. After just his third semester at Central State University (now University of Central Oklahoma). Hoke was moved onto the full-time staff in March of 1977 and continued his education at CSU full-time while working full-time. He graduated from CSU in 1980 with a degree in Photojournalism. As you can imagine, Hoke has covered just about everything while at The Oklahoman. His early career had strong emphasis in the area of sports, where he has covered collegiate championships in eight different sports and various other national championships, as well as state championships on the high school level. Another area of specialty throughout his career has been fashion where his sense of design and creativeness can be exploited. Always in the forefront of new techniques and styles in his photography, Hoke now uses those skills to photograph the occasional environmental portrait. As Director of Photography, Hoke uses his vast experience to direct the staff in many areas now. As times have changed, The Oklahoman has moved from black and white film only, to color slides, color prints, then scanning color negatives, to digital cameras, and now video. With publication covering print products and online web sites, blogs, and galleries the photo department has more places to display their work than ever before.