I won first place for the Feature Photography Metro category at the Society of Professional Journalists awards. More about SPJ here and the local chapter here.

Cover photo by David Harpe

I was one of the photographers asked to shoot for the issue. Here is a Gallery of my images. This was a fun project. I hope they continue to do this in the future.

I recently shot an assignment for the Courier-Journal that accompanied a story about Tayler Lynch, a high school freshman, who organized a fundraiser for breast cancer awareness.

Read Full Story Here

Tayler Lynch is still accepting donations in connection with the breast-cancer walk. They may be sent care of Tayler Lynch to Emmanuel Assembly of God Church, 5701 Johnsontown Road, Louisville KY, 40272. Make all checks payable to the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

I shot the cover and feature images at Nachbar during a particularly crazy night. Things that added to the chaos: two bands (Adventure and Danger Bird), a photo booth, a caricaturist, the Party Crasher, a blue million future alcoholics, and a freaking mustache party… Oh and the constant threat of rain. There was no room in the bar to set up. It is a smallish bar that is packed on weekends.

The assignment was to get portraits of people making their oh face… or their public version of it. Very silly. As you can imagine, it was no small feat to convince someone to do something that potentially embarrassing for a pub that would be on their coffee table the following Wednesday.

I started out a little to ambitious – two off camera strobes, a homemade beauty dish, and a small roll of background paper. After spending 20 minutes trying to tape the paper to a picket fence with the worst tape ever made (Walgreens clear packing tape), out doors, in the wind, I made the executive decision to skip the background and cut the images out in post. By this time the first band had started and the crowd started to swell to a point that my gear was in danger. So I down shifted again to a single strobe on a bracket with a Micro Apollo soft box. This also made me more mobile. I cranked the shutter up to kill the ambient light, and shot pretty close-in to minimize spill of the strobe on any background objects.

Lessons learned:
wind+paper+crappy tape do not mix
alcohol and tripods in the same space can spell disaster
trust and a good bedside manor are your most valuable resource