Sleep deprivation is real, y'all. Got back into Louisville on Sunday from spending a week down near the Tennessee line in Williamsburg, Kentucky. Was in Whitley County to take part in the photojournalism component of the Mountain Workshops but they omitted to include sleep on the syllabus.
Good practice for photojournalism I suppose. On the first day, we drew slips of paper out of a hat that had a name, phone number and short description. From that we had to make contact with our subject and get access to shoot and develop a story about them.
Street photography this ain't, actually have to talk to people, and get their names! My slip of paper had the name and number of an artist and organic farmer, who got to have me embed myself in their life for a few days.
Was more than a bit surreal, meet folks for the first time and then an hour or two later you're circling their dining room table snapping photos as they try and eat their evening meal.
Followed them around from Wednesday through early Saturday, shooting and looking for the story, and the story within the story. You can see the results of the workshop on by following the link above or check out my story here.
Will post more about the workshop soon, but for now it's only right to close with a thank you to Super 8 for one of the more memorable and underwhelming motel stays ever.
What a cool assignment for that workshop. That photo from the sinner table gives a nice insight in their lives.
Are the photos behind the link yours as well? Because there are a few really cool ones there with a lot of emotion. I miss that a bit in this series.
The workshop was really something, they broke us up into small groups of 6-7, each with a photo coach and a writing coach. I had a New York Times photo editor, Tanner Curtis, for a photo coach, which was really helpful.
The first link is all the stories the workshop produced (there was also video and photo editing classes too) but the second link "Raising a future" story is mine. The photo coaches selected the photos for our stories out of the 1000 or so shots we took and they're a lot better at that than I am :) There's plenty more with lots of emotion, I was just having trouble narrowing it down to a few for an overview.
First you made a lame duck cool and now a Super 8?!
Don't think that's possible to do with a Super 8, particularly that one. Wasn't the worst motel I've ever stayed in, there's a Motel 6 in OKC with that honor but it was a close runner up.
I got a couple major shitholes I can think of too dude. Off the top, a shady joint in Parker, Az... Never took my socks off there, not even to shower. And another one in Memphis, once. It was a holiday, too, can't remember which one. There were more buckets in the halls catching water than rooms there.
What an experience! Really thrilled to read the future posts and see some shots!
It was something else, I learned so much. Now to process everything and apply it :)
wow what an experience.
love your images about this family life
It was amazing, and very intense, learned a lot though.
Thanks!
once i planned something "similar" - a "Regular Family" project to come to families i know, just at morning or to stay for sleep and to be ready to document at early morning how the day is starting for adults and their kids. Even photographed two families but got stuck with finding more willing to do this
Kudos for doing this workshop and talk to the people selected for you. I assume they agreed to this beforehand but I can imagine it'd still be weird. You were the only one assigned to this family? The story and images on the site you linked are amazing.
Thanks. Everyone had agreed but at the same time, nobody understood what they were agreeing to. A good number of people had their initial stories fall through, in which case they drew another name or just went out into the community and found one. I was the only one with this family but it is a fairly small community so as I followed them around I occasionally ran into other photographers as our stories overlapped. Thanks :) It was a really amazing workshop.
Interesting... I glanced over some of the other stories (haven't read them yet but will come back to them) and my initial thought was what a diverse community, I think I might like it. So, to you and your fellow photo journalists: Well done.
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