I love doing unique self portraits when I can a canvas outside the box. I shot this at the Licking Valley RECC Annual Meeting, near West Liberty, in May. In addition to scholarships, and a beauty contest, they have a really nice car show. It looks like I really need to lose weight!

It took me nearly 25 years, but I finally made it to the state tournament baseball championship. Getting there wasn’t at all how I imagined it would be. This wasn’t what I imagined during all those evenings of passing ball with my Dad in the front yard, or playing whiffle ball games with Darby, Dustin, and Shim in the summers, or playing four years of high school baseball at Powell County from 1985-1988.

I always imagined me in my Powell County uniform, wearing #3 of course, being carried off the field on the shoulders of my teammates after throwing a no-hitter… no, no, a perfect game in the championship. Of course my championship performance would’ve been against one of those big city teams from Louisville or Lexington. My baseball fantasy was always based on a David vs. Goliath scenario. All the while, the ultimate championship songs like We Are The Champions, by Queen, and Don’t Stop Believing, by Journey, would be ringing out through ball park.

I don’t think there has ever been a  kid who was serious about baseball who hasn’t dreamed this dream. And there is an equally impressive fantasy about doing equal major league feats in the World Series, for the Cincinnati Reds of course. Except in that dream, Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, are let onto the field afterwards to personally congratulate me for defeating the Yankees in Game 7.

But in reality, I made it to the state championship, as one of the official photographer’s for the Kentucky High School Athletic Association, along with my buddy Jim Osborn. I made it to the state tournament as a 41-year-old who is technically overweight, according to my daughter’s Wii Fit game, and I now have more gray hair than black. I’ve traded my Wilson A-2000 ball glove, which was top shelf during Christmas 1986, in for my Nikon camera and lenses. I traded my cleats and uniform in for a fanny pack full of camera equipment. Darrell and Dustin Billings were in the stands for the championship game and texted me saying I “looked like I was going into combat.” I feel like that sometimes. A photographer’s fanny pack system is like a woman’s purse, you stuff it full of crap, never knowing when you might need something. Preparation is the key to success in my business.

When it was all said and done, two Cinderella teams played for the championship after a week of great baseball. Unfortunately, Mercer County ran out pitching in the 6-day tournament, and got pounded 21-3 by Central Hardin. It felt great to run out on the field with Central Hardin and document their celebration, with Journey and Queen as the house bands.

Whether its a soap opera, a great movie, novel, or yes, even wrestling, the human spirit needs to fantasize and dream about something other than waking up on Monday mornings and going to work, paying bills, and taxes. Photography is good to me. It allows me to live my dreams everyday.

I’ve always loved old abandoned houses. And Kentucky is full of them. Every time I see one I wonder about it’s story. I wonder what the walls would say if they could talk. I wonder who used to live there. I think about how many kids were raised in that old house, and how many people passed on from there. I think about the storms, the snow, and the rain that it endured over time. I think about the warmth of Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve get-togethers, and the kids and grand kids who came running down the steps each morning.

Now they just sit there. Fragments of our of heritage, deteriorating a little more each year. Kentucky is a perfect place for these old houses, because we’re still a state that has more land than population. I enjoy seeing these plank board museums, as I drive by listening to my satellite radio and probably talking on my cell phone. Its a reminder that the old and new can still coexist.

Although I have no emotional or physical ties to these houses, it’s a little sad to think about the livelihood that used to exist within them, and now see the stark contrast with its slow, dilapidating death. But then I remind myself that its all part of the circle of life, and that someday my grand kids will make fun of cell phone and my satellite radio because they were so old fashion.

This is an old house that I see every time I go back to Clay City. It’s at the intersection of Hwy. 89 and Hwy 2001.