Between May21st and 31st race fans from all over the country descend on Charlotte to enjoy the Nascar experience.  At the center of that experience is Speed TV, the Charlotte based broadcasting company that is the nation’s first and foremost cable television network dedicated to motor sports and the fan experience.

While hundreds of photographers covered the drivers, race teams, and events, my job was to focus on my clients needs by documenting the broadcast teams, sets, fan interaction, corporate involvement, and the overall brand that has become synonymous with all things motorsports. These are just a few but if  interested you can find a larger selection under my recent projects category of my website.

Well I was poised to add another blog today about another subject when I received an email and learned about the death of Ken Gehle, a fellow photographer out of Atlanta,  just shy of his 47th birthday.  Although I did not know him personally, I knew his work well and the loss comes as a shock. Perhaps the shock is due largely to the fact that I see the similarities in our lives and it hits a little too close to home.  He too had a wife and 2 children, one boy and one girl, just as I do, and we both had similar styles and passions in life as well as our photography.  A battle with cancer took him from his family and already having a melanoma myself when I was 27, I understand that cancer can strike anyone at any time.  So naturally, when I heard the news, it caused me to reflect on my own mortality, and on what truly matters in life.

First and foremost I want to share Ken’s website with you, where proceeds from print sales will go towards his kids college education  http://www.kengehle.com .     From his landscapes of Newfoundland to his environmental portraits of everyday people, his work was beautiful, clean, and of the highest quality.  I myself would visit his website from time to time to seek inspiration in my ow work.

The unfortunate news conjured up various thoughts.  What about the the longevity of my photography and more importantly, it’s ability to earn income for my family, if I were to meet a similar fate.  The reality is, if I were to suddenly die today, my computer would gather dust, the 12 external hard drives with over 6 terabytes of images would become paper weights, and the filing cabinets full of transparencies would remain in the dark.  Like most photographers, I can be very controlling when it comes to my work and therefore am the only one who really knows the system, what images are where, and how to access them, so the reality of my photography living on and having the ability to earn residual income as stock photography or prints for my family, is remote.

While the thought of it can be depressing it raises a more fundamental question, which is what is my true worth?  As artists we put our hearts and souls into our work and it very much can define us.  We value it more than any client is capable of doing because to them it is utilized to gain a result or profit, but to us it is often an expression of who we are and how we feel.  But when it is all said and done, they are just images, it was just work, and a means to supporting a family and although I would like to commit to having a plan for my work to live on in the event of a tragedy, perhaps my time would be better spent enjoying time with my wife and kids so instead of my images living on, the memories of me in their lives will be what endures.

I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for Ken to fight everyday knowing that sooner or later the cancer would take him from his family.  I can’t comprehend how heart wrenching it must have been for his wife and children to witness it.   What I do know is that it is very easy to get caught up in the every day and let work take over our lives.  I am very fortunate to make a living doing what I love, but in the end it is a job that will cease the very second that I do and there will be plenty to take my place.   The memories that I create and the love that I give to my wife and kids however will live as long as they do and my role in my family is unique to me and not one that is easily replaced.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Ken’s family and I thank him for  producing work during his time that was inspirational and for reminding me how  fragile life can be.

For no other reason than this past weekends Kentucky Derby got me thinking about Horses and Kentucky, where I spent many days of my youth having grown up right across the river in Cincinnati,  I thought I would share some images of a Horse Farm I photographed in Paris, Kentucky back in November.  Siena Farms recently converted an old cattle farm into a breath taking horse farm with striking yellow stables and is dedicated to breeding and raising world class race horses.  Here are a couple images from the photo shoot.

If you are ever driving on interstate 75 through Kentucky and can afford to take 30 or so minutes off your drive, veer off to the East around Lexington and get ready to see some beautiful rolling hills, breathtaking horse farms, and a truly unique and history rich part of our country.

When clients ask why I don’t deliver unretouched RAW files,  without getting into a long diatribe listing the many reasons why I retain all files and only deliver client selected retouched versions, the simplest answer seems to be “quality control”.

I can completely understand why clients may feel as though the images they paid good money for are being held hostage.  I empathize with the stress a designer may feel when the client wants an ad out the door ASAP and you can’t get in touch with the photographer.  I can also relate to the desire for any party to wipe their hands clean and to not feel chained and reliant on a photographer to accomplish their goals.  My business practice of retaining control of the images is not an evil plot to make others lives miserable, on the contrary, it is to ensure that you look good and the client is well served.  Once I let an image out free into the world, I no longer have control, but unfortunately am the first to blame when it doesn’t look good, so yes, there is a selfish element here.  My work and business are  judged on the image and I need to do everything possible to control it’s quality.  Fortunately for the client, what best serves my business and reputation serves them as well.

While I am sure to have more blogs on this subject as well as on the value of retouching and the time involved in doing so, perhaps for now, a before and after picture from a shoot when weather was not cooperating, may in fact best illustrate why I prefer to control the final outcome of the image.

I lost an Uncle the other day who fought and defied cancer for 4 years after doctors diagnosed him as terminal and only gave him several months to live.  No photography related subject matter here,  just honoring a man that lived a life worth honoring.   My Uncle John was a true gentleman and one of the kindest and most positive individuals I knew.  He was what you would call genuine,  and they don’t make many of those these days.  He was always a good example to me and my siblings growing up but in fighting cancer and living the remainder of his life with such optimism, strength, courage, and grace,  he taught me more than he will ever know.  It is how we should all live every day.

One of my favorite memories of my Uncle, with photos included, was when during a family beach vacation we had a wig party.  At the time he was undergoing chemo and lost all his hair and that night someone loaned him the classic mullet wig. “business in the front and party in the back”  About midway through the night I pronounced that Uncle John’s  mullet was my favorite to which he turned to me and replied  ” You know everyone keeps saying that to me tonight……… now what in the hell is a mullet”

Thanks for the memories……. you will be missed.

O.K.  I am adamantly against those chain emails that threaten bad luck and disaster if you do not forward it onto 10 people and although the one my mother recently sent did not do that, it actually may have raised the bar.

She sent, by regular mail, a classroom journal.  Don’t get me wrong, I like my own kids school projects……… sometimes….. but this was a project for a 5th grade student in New York who I didn’t even know.   It was a journal that the class was hoping to spread around the country for individuals to write in describing where they lived. They wanted you to include photos, descriptions as well as to send a postcard to the class while the journal continued it’s way to the next victim.  Sure, in the initial directions it asks that if you can not complete the project within two weeks to please mail the package to someone else who can.  That doesn’t seem like a viable option to me.  I would have a very difficult time sending the journal onto a friend, family member, or even enemy, asking them to take out time to participate when I couldn’t even do it myself.

This task was going to take out time from any individuals schedule but to pass it on to an artist who by nature links a large part of their self worth to what they create… well that is just cruel.   Of course I know she didn’t think much of it and really, why would she think that I would obsess about it the way I did.  As I sat at the computer, literally for hours, importing images and designing pages when every part of me was trying to stop myself and get back to actually making a living, I began to question whether I had serious issues or not.  Part of me wants to justify it by claiming myself the perfectionist but there is the other part of me that is disgusted with myself for caring too much about something that really doesn’t matter.  What is ironic is that the journal entry before mine is from my mother who went on the computer, googled Ocean City, Maryland, and printed out a few pages she found on the area and glued it to the pages of the journal.  Done !    I started that same way, thinking she was brilliant, but after researching, I was not finding the right material.  I attempted to find a couple of skyline photos of Charlotte, and either was not happy with what I found or the ones I did like, could not in good conscience use out of respect for the copyright holders…..  O.K.  I am sure pride played a role in there too,  after all, what self respecting photographer uses someone else’s photos over their own?  Then it dawned on me, I had photographed Charlotte fairly extensively on an assignment for the US AIR in flight Magazine several years ago.  Piece of cake! Download the PDF’s of the article and photos, print them out, paste them in and move on……………well that would be too easy.

After downloading the pdf’s I realized that I had to contend with advertisements and layouts and dimensions that did not fit my 5th grade journal dimensions and that is when it all started.  Suddenly I was scaling things, redesigning, importing new images, and laying out a brochure on Charlotte……so maybe I really do have problems……. but I know there are others out there that would do the same thing.  The real question for me is, would my mother be proud that I have high standards and produced a good quality journal entry for a  5th grade project out of personal pride, or would she think I was an idiot?   Being that my mother used to put dried Cheerios and a frozen bottle of milk in our cribs at night that would be thawed when we woke, ensuring another hour or two of sleep for herself, tells me that I know the answer to that question.

I have to shoot an aerial tomorrow for a client and had to do something today that was difficult for me and went against my personal quality and aesthetic standards.   I booked a helicopter and a pilot for 1:00 in the afternoon, the worst time to photograph when the light is so high and flat, depleting the earth of all depth and shadows.  Not an ideal situation for creating beautiful aerial images.  Not only did I go so far as to research the suns zenith, or highest point in the sky, but I scheduled it before the buds on the trees had a chance to sprout their beautiful light green leaves.  Why you ask………  Because that is what best served the client and their needs, not mine.

Long story short, the shoot is for reference purposes in a law suit where personal property (trees) were destroyed and to best illustrate that, it requires having the property line clearly marked and visible and out of the shadows of the nearby mature trees.  As difficult as it is as an artist to go into a job with no intention of creating beautiful photography it is a valuable exercise that reminds me that my needs and or desire to create great photography is secondary to what my clients needs are.  It is wonderful when the clients needs perfectly align with ones own vision and expectations as a photographer but the reality is, when you shoot commercially for a living,  your job first and foremost is to put aside personal creative goals and to focus intently on understanding your clients needs and delivering a product that serves them, not yourself.

So for now, as much as I love photographing from a helicopter in the early morning or late afternoon when the light is more dramatic and creates great shadows and depth on the landscape below, I will have to approach the job as we always should and do what best meets the goals of the client, not our own and create an image that although may not be beautiful, is effective.