Back in 2009, I had the privilege of joining the Danville Advocate Messenger’s chief photographer on a very unique and once in a lifetime experience of shooting the battle of Perryville Civil War re-enactment in Perryville, Kentucky. Thousands of Confederate and Union soldiers plus many of their families dressed, talked and lived the part for a weekend in the crisp Kentucky autumn air. Here are a selection of my favorite photos from two days of walking around the battle site and camps.

On a side note: MAN those cannons are loud!!!!!

 

My sister graduated from Elon University in May. Here is a photo I liked from the graduation ceremony. Congrats grads!

This has been a long time coming. To be honest, I meant to get around to writing this a many months ago, but life kind of did a backflip on me, I ended up in England and this got put on the back burner. But fear not, I am making up for that now.

Clay probably wouldn’t remember this but I met the Danville Advocate Messenger’s chief photographer, Clay Jackson , at a NCAA D3 championship basketball game in March of 2009 at Centre College. There I was sitting at the first basketball game I had ever photographed shooting with a Nikon D80 that was truly struggling to cope with the incandescent lighting and low light levels in a poorly lit Division 3 basketball gym, and here was this professional with a really big camera (a D3, if I remember) shooting the game next to me with a 70-200 2.8. He politely asked if I was shooting for the school, which I was. We made small talk and nothing more came out of it. I met Clay again at Centre’s invitational track meet about a month later where we both had about the same idea for a photo. I remembered talking to him at the basketball game a month prior, so we talked again and he offered his business card and told me if there was any way that he could help me, please get in touch. A few weeks later, he offered me my first newspaper shoot to be run in the paper that weekend of the St. Baldrick’s Day hair shaving festivities. Clay and I became fairly good friends over the next year, and when senior year arrived and I knew for certain that I wanted to pursue a career as a photographer, Clay was a good man to know.

Following a fall and winter term filled with classes, swimming and generally a busy life, I opted to take a 3 credit hour internship in the spring under Clay’s supervision at the Advocate Messenger. I had done work for the Advocate off and on all fall and winter but nothing consistent. But my working off and on for the paper had allowed me to get to know Clay, and for him to get to know me. He gladly accepted my proposal to be the Advocate’s spring intern and we worked out the finer details of my time with them. So I began the 4 month internship with Danville’s own as I wrapped up my college career.

I had lived in Danville for over 3 years prior to joining with the Advocate, but I will be honest when I say that I really didnt know the town at all. Not being from Kentucky and feeling like something of an outsider is made easier when everything I had ever needed at school could be found on campus, at Applebees or at the local walmart. So asking me to go out and find feature photos for the paper was asking a lot. Intimidating was a good word for how I felt about it.

After having had a wonderful summer with the Charlotte Observer over the summer of 2009, shooting for the small town paper that the Advocate is, was something totally different for me. I think I was only asked to shoot a feature photo 2 or 3 times at the Observer where as at the Advocate, 95% of the work I did was feature based. The Observer had a complicated email system letting it’s shooters know when assignments had been given to them which would always include details on the event, the reporter on the story, the basic story line and every other microscopic thing that could be known about the assignment. However, at the Advocate, Clay would shoot me a quick text or email with the basics and say “go make photos” or something along those lines. Obviously the differences were night and day. But each taught me something worth remembering. Small town papers have so much to offer. Your possibilities for covering the day are nearly endless. Clay being the only staff photographer and one of the only professional photojournalists in the area has free reign over the Kentucky countryside and most people know him personally, or certainly know of him. So being the North Carolina college boy was at times difficult, but as with anything, pressure and stress teach you more about yourself than just floating through life ever will. By being forced to go out and get to know the community, it allowed me to understand myself a bit better. What I’m good at and what I’m not good at. I accept those short comings and work on fixing them every single day.

The Observer was a fantastic experience. It taught me how to please an editor and how to go make images that are truly meaningful and that will be seen by millions of people. I am indebted to the Observer’s staff for teaching me as much as they did. About life, and of course photojournalism. But my experience with the Advocate taught me to really make photos. Because I wasnt making them on a tight deadline or necessarily for any specific story, but simply to capture life in small town Kentucky. And there is certainly something to be said for that. So thank you to Clay. Thank you to everyone at the Advocate Messenger. I’m sorry it took so long to write this.

Below are some of my favorite images that I made with my time at the Advocate.

The sun shone bright today in Kentucky. But much of the area has brand new waterfront property. These are some photos from a lake in the area that has been deluged with the runoff from local streams and rivers. The sign below sits next to a road that crosses the lake. Clearly, the situation for these house boaters is bad.

Centre College’s spring carnival is always a fun and relaxing time for students. The student government brings in a singer each year and this years main attraction was Matt Nathanson who is best known for “Come on Get Higher.” The guy is pretty dang funny. He spent most of the night heckling the crowd and making fun of random people in the student body. It was a fun night.

Enjoy the photos!

I was supposed to have credentials to shoot the Kentucky Oaks and Kentucky Derby this past weekend at Churchill Downs, however due to circumstances beyond my control, Churchill decided not to give the Advocate credentials, which meant I didnt get to go.

Instead, I got this assignment for friday afternoon. Cute kids. Lots of fun and smiles.

Kids at a local elementary school got first hand gardening experience planting flowers on Friday morning.

It has rained for 2 days straight across much of the midwest and it wouldn’t at all surprise me to see an Ark being built in the area.

Centre College’s Greek community celebrates with a week of competitions. Most of them are not terribly good for taking photos, but the Greek Olympics is a different story. Good fun. Enjoy.

14 year old James Todd rips up the pavement at Millennium Park on Wednesday afternoon. Just some random shots from my brief visit to the skateboard park. The shot below was done with a remote, but as it turns out, I probably didnt need the remote and could have just hand held it. Oh well. Live and learn.