iPhone 13 | Knoxville, Tennessee
Most of my photography assignments begin before I arrive on location. First conversations with clients involve visual tone, lighting, and potential locations. Sometimes a photography session is shaped by early conversations with portrait subjects or by visual research about a neighborhood, or by a big idea we are illustrating.
On location in Knoxville, Tennessee for UMASS Magazine recently, my assignment was also informed by the gorgeous issue of Mergoat Magazine I picked up in a cafe and flipped through before walking through Old Gray Cemetery. It was changed by unexpectedly heavy rain as it was prevented from falling on a carefully groomed Smokies baseball diamond. It was flavored by my producer’s nostalgia that resulted in a late-night stop at the Waffle House.
My niece asked me how I think about the future of my work. She was wondering what AI-created imagery will mean for the kind of editorial photography I do. And I can’t quite know.
But making work that combines the sensation of rain-on-skin and the specter of invasive kudzu and the taste of a stack of late-night pancakes into a story about a very specific place might be my favorite kind of alchemy.
I’m grateful it’s also what I get to call my work.
Images from the Knoxville sessions are embargoed until the articles are published later in 2024; images included here are iPhone BTS
