After spending 3 days shooting just over 30 athletes from every sport at the University of Tennessee last week, the images are starting to surface!
Keep checking in for an in depth look at those 3 days and see what it took to create UT’s 2013 Tennessee Fund campaign.
I’m thrilled to share my first Billboard Magazine cover featuring The Band Perry!
Stay tuned for more photos and extensive behind the scenes look at how the shoot went down here in Nashville.
It is always exciting when I get a call for an assignment for Billboard Magazine, I’ve been a fan of the magazine for many years now. One of my favorite shoots I recently did for them was country singer Holly Williams.
Holly and her husband were both really great people and I definitely enjoyed my time at their home.
Holly just released a new album titled The Highway so make sure you go check it out!
(Photos shot in Nashville)
Check out the write up Wonderful Machine did about my gallery shoot for the television show Big Texas Heat on CMT!
In early September I had the pleasure of shooting Royal Teeth for the RAGGED Magazine, put out by FILTER Magazine. As I started to get all the details of the shoot, it got more and more enticing! Great band, great magazine and they wanted multiple great locations, I’M IN!
The first and largest task was nailing down our locations. The article was featuring the band in the New Orleans area and the goal was to give people coming in for VooDoo Festival some good places to check out. Between the band, their management and myself we began to throw around ideas. Some were strong and some were weak, but in the end we decided on a good variety of locations.
Our first location was Kliebert’s Turtle and Alligator Farm located in Ponchatoula, La. We arrived at the farm after we finished up with hair, makeup and wardrobe at a nearby home. It was early, but the crew knew we were about to be shooting with live alligators so everyone was pretty anxious and awake from what I could tell. Maybe it was just me.. I tend to get excited on production days.
We decided we were going to shoot on an old air boat that was sitting between two on the gator pins. So as we started to set up and direct the band, T-Mike Kliebert began wrestling gators out of their pins and hosing them off to make them nice and photo ready. The interesting thing about the gators was how aggressive they were while being wrangled, but when the handlers plopped them down they were almost like statues and rarely moved.
The location was great and no one lost any member of their body, thankfully. Huge thanks to the Kliebert’s for being such great sports that morning, we couldn’t have done it without them!
Location numer 2 is a place very close to my heart and located smack dab in the heart of the Crescent City, Cafe Du Monde! If you have never been to this iconic New Orleans cafe you are missing out! Growing up I have indulged in many of Cafe Du Monde’s delicious beignets and sipped on their coffee. One thing beignet gluttons, like myself, know is that the powdered sugar on top can make a big mess! I knew exactly what shot I wanted from this location as soon as I was given the OK to shoot there. All you do is give the beignet a little burst of breath and KAPOW it goes everywhere!
Luckily it didn’t take too many tries to get the shot so the mess was minimal. Cafe Du Monde’s vice president joined us for part of the shoot and I must say he was one of the nicest people I have yet to meet. It was a dream come true to do a photo shoot in one of my favorite locations in the city.
For our third location we headed not too far down the road to Euclid record shop in the Bywater neighborhood. The band members were frequent customers of the shop and the exterior of the building made for a fun and pink backdrop.
After a yummy pizza lunch we ended our long day of shooting at Funky Monkey on Magazine St. We wanted to feature Nora on this shot since she is the only women in a band of men, so why not a shopping photo. This shot was a little bit trickier to achieve technically, mainly due to the angle that we wanted and the swinging bags blocking some of the guys. All it took was a little tweaking and several swings of the bags.
At the end of the day we were all drained, sunburned and pretty nasty from working in the Louisiana heat all day, but we were all also very satisfied.
Check out the behind the scenes video shot by my good buddy Adam Walters!
Wardrobe Stylist: Candra-Eloise Burges
Hair Stylist: David Connor
Assistant: Brian Posslenzny and Tomas Santamaria
Videographer: Adam Walters
Right after I finished my photo shoot with Missy Franklin and had some quick espresso with my buddy Donald in Knoxville, I dashed back to Nashville for a meeting with All Sons and Daughters that evening.
I met with David and Leslie in Franklin at Journey Church where they are also the worship leaders. They had a great “office” space that was kind of like a pianists dream room, David has some fun toys hidden away back there. Meeting with an artists prior to a shoot can be so important and really effect how the shoot day will go. I enjoyed so much chatting with them and hearing about the tracks on the album, getting to hear some samples and also hearing their desires for the photos.
We decided to get an early start and beat the sun to the first location by about 20min, never hurts to wake up at 4am every now and then. Our goal was to catch the sunrise and the fog that we all thought was going to be covering the field that morning. Who knew there would be almost no fog that morning…. Oh well, life goes on.
It was still a beautifully dreary morning, really set a solid mood for the images. Leslie brought along a very cool old light that was our main focus at our first location that morning. The light was great, but a bit sketchy electrical wise.. That only got worse when the rain came, but with all that came this wonderful shot of Leslie getting electrocuted. She was fine and it made for a good laugh and funny photo.
David and Leslie are two of the most talented people that I know and it was an absolute pleasure working with them on this project. Be sure to check them out and buy The Longing, out now. Also be on the lookout for a live record/DVD in the works that I had the honor of working on along side All Sons and Daughters.
Check out their new album The Longing HERE
It was my absolute pleasure to get the opportunity to photograph Olympic swimmer Missy Franklin for The Hollywood Reporter Magazine. I received a phone call the night prior to she shoot from the magazine asking if I was available for a last minute shoot with an Olympian. The job came at a very busy time for me, but after rearranging a few meetings I was good to go.
The shoot was to take place in Knoxville,TN at the aquatics building at UT where the Olympic swim team had been practicing. This was a very last minute shoot and I was told that I would have 30min with Missy and was given a shot list. Living in Nashville I left the house at around 3:30am to get to Knoxville in time to set up and get ready before Missy arrived.
The last detail I received from the client was that there might be a media day going on at UT in the morning.. I didn’t realize the weight of those words until I got on location and found out that it wouldn’t be Missy, myself, an assistant and a pool.. It would be all of that plus around 2000 other people.
This had a pretty significant impact on what I could shoot and where I could shoot, but luckily my good friend and fellow photographer Donald Page, the head sports photographer at UT, showed me the one vacant spot in the building that ended up being exactly what I needed. I set up and popped off a few test shots using Donald as a test subject, then took a few minutes to shoot photos of the swim team warming up.
Soon after I found out that I would not have 30min with Missy, but I would have 15min.. Ok, not bad let’s do it! Well…. Once Missy arrived (she wasn’t swimming that day) I was told that I would have 10 min with her. Fine fine, was almost expecting that.
Missy came over with me and we got down to shooting, keeping in the back of my mind the time frame I was given I worked swiftly. Before I knew it the shoot was over and she off to an interview.
I got the oppertunity to chat with Missy while we shot and I have to say that she is truely a sweet person. Nothing but smiles and joy the whole time, an absolute pleasure to work with. Missy won silver in her first event setting an American record, but today she got her gold! I couldnt be more happy for her and I can’t wait to see how many she racks up by the end of her events.
It wasn’t until I got home and checked the times on the image data that I realized my 10minutes dwindled down to 5minutes from 1st shot to last. I was happy, the client was happy and I got back to Nashville with 15min to spare before my meeting! Good day indeed!
After meeting and sipping down some coffee at Nashville’s Frothy Monkey, I had the pleasure of photographing music artist Anna Johnson. We knew what vibe we wanted for the images, but had not nailed down a location. After spending some time location scouting, I came across a magical little area deep in Percy Warner Park. About a week later with much excitement and many spiders we began shooting.
The final image now graces the homepage of my website. I absolutely fell in love with the image and feeling that you get from it.
I used 2 strobes for this image, one in front and one behind her, both using umbrellas. I think this might be the only shoot in years where I used 2 umbrellas, but I was looking for a widespread light source and it worked just as I wanted. 
In addition to the fairly simple strobe setup, the natural light played a big roll in bringing the image to life as well.
Here is an unrefined image from the shoot where you can catch a glimpse of the lights being used.
Anna and I have already begun to plan our next shoot coming up in September for a Christmas album she and the band are putting out.
You can find out more about Anna Johnson and the upcoming album here:
