Welcome to the Webbpage Blog. Home of Tim Webb Photography. Here is where you can see what really goes on in my life. Enjoy!
My Mentor, My Dad
It's taken me about a month to find the words to make this post after my Dad lost his four-year battle with cancer on August 31, 2020. He was the reason that I became a photographer. Most people look at me funny when I say I've been doing photography since I was in second grade, but it's true! And I owe all of that to my Dad. I'll borrow a few words from the eulogy that I wrote for his funeral... "of all of his hobbies, I like to think that it was by the pure Grace of God that he decided to set up a black and white darkroom in our living room in the winter of 1978. Because it was there that he introduced me to one of the great loves of my life and eventually to my career, with the art of photography! He developed a photo of a flooded barn in Clay City that was taken during the epic flood of 1978. I set my Star Wars X-Wing Fighter down just long enough to watch that barn magically appear in the developer tray, and I have literally never looked back since then. It was truly a life changing moment that I had with my dad.
Dad then gave me an old Agfa viewfinder camera that was 100 percent manual! There was no light meter. Just f-stops, shutter speeds, and a manual focus ring that taught me to judge the distance from the camera to the subject. And with that, Dad unknowingly gave me one of the greatest gifts of my life, he taught me how to read light. Of course, none of us thought anything about it at the time, but to a photographer light is everything!
We'd be driving down the road and he'd say, "Tim Bo, what's your camera settings for that house over there? I'd think about it and say something like, "f-8 at 250???" He'd say, "Yeah, that's pretty close." To make matters worse, he started me out on slide film, so I really did have to learn how to read light at a young age, or none of my photos would've ever turned out right.
Both of my parents supported me as I followed my dream of becoming a professional photographer. Ultimately, they gave me the one thing that no one will ever be able to take away from me...an education!
The photos above are of the Agfa camera that's now in my office, the flooded barn that got it all started, and a photo from a few days later, which is undoubtedly the first photo that I ever took in my life, a photo of the man who introduced me to all of it, a picture of my Dad sitting on the couch in our den in Clay City, Kentucky, during the snowy winter of 1978.
A Foggy Situation
I'm definitely pro-mask, but it does make work interesting with safety glasses!
Creating a Storm
Every now and then I get to totally create the scene of a photo. I would never be able to do this with photojournalism or some of the event photography that I do, but with some types of corporate work I get to take 100 percent control of the situation to tell the visual story that I want to tell. I've always been inspired by the works of Annie Leibovitz who shot for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair for many years, and Mark Cornelison here locally, who used to work for the Lexington Herald-Leader and now with UK. Both are phenomenal photographers who do more than create images, they create moods and themes for their photos. Both are true artists!
Here are a few images and a couple of behind-the-scenes videos of a shoot that I did for East Kentucky Power as we set up a storm scene with Clark Energy linemen Richard Steele and Chad Cline in Winchester a couple of weeks ago. Wet pavement at night always makes for good reflections. I used some yellow and orange gels to play off the caution lights on the truck, and the Good Lord tossed in a few ominous clouds for good measure!
How COVID-19 turned Kentucky's Meat Industry Upside Down
As a deer hunter I've used local meat processors for a long time, but I had never photographed them before. COVID-induced food shortages this spring has made a lot of people want to be less dependent on grocery stores, especially for their meat. Because of this, Mom & Pop style meat processors, like Pennington Farm in Rowan County and Appalachian Meats in Morgan County have now become very popular with people who would normally buy all of their meat at grocery store. Appalachian Meats is so backed up because of COVID demands, they can't process any new orders until Spring of 2021.
Here is the cover story that I photographed for the June 2020 Kentucky Living Magazine.
Nolan & Kelsie's Wedding
Nolan and Kelsie turned their big wedding into a small private wedding at my grandmother’s church in Olive Hill on May 16th. Planning a wedding during a pandemic has been crazy, but they made it happen, even through Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, and Plan D! I never thought I would photograph my own kid's wedding. I don't recommend it because it sucked! I either had to be Dad or Photographer, but I wasn't able to be both at the same time. A person can only occupy one space at a time. A good friend of mine, Kellie Carter, was supposed to photograph the original wedding, but the Corona Virus changed all of that. So I did it out of default.
The wedding was supposed to be in a perfect circle that was mowed out of a hay field at my grandparent's house, with Nolan and Kelsie standing in the middle of the circle, while their family was socially-distanced around them. Because of a couple of rainstorms at the last minute we had to move it a half mile up the road to the church. We were thankful and blessed that we had a solid backup plan. The church worked out beautifully, but we weren't prepared to go there on the fly, so Natalie and I wound up getting ready, literally about 30 minutes before the wedding started, and both of us were drenched! At the end of the day, it all worked out great, and I now have a daughter-in-law! #itheewebb
