Welcome to the Webbpage Blog. Home of Tim Webb Photography. Here is where you can see what really goes on in my life. Enjoy!
Bad Weather Makes Good Photos
I usually post my personal stuff on Facebook and my professional stuff here on my blog. But I want to do a little fatherly bragging on my son Cameron. Cameron came to me one summer day when he was just 14 years old, and asked me to take him a few streets down in our neighborhood to mow someone's yard. I loaded him up in my wife's SUV, with him holding our push mower in one hand, and holding open the SUV's lift gate with the other. About 30 minutes later, he called me and said he needed to go to another person's house to mow. I asked him what this was all about and he told me that he had advertised his mowing company on the neighborhood Facebook page. I curiously asked, "You have a mowing company?" He said, "I do now!" And the rest is history.
Now, ten years later, he'll soon be 25 years old, and has a major lawn and landscape business that he literally built from the grass up. When the weather turns cold lawn and landscape people usually do snow removal in the winter. The snow storm that hit much of the country last week was unique in that it quickly turned into several inches of solid ice when the temps dropped into the single digits. It became almost impossible to remove. Cameron and his guys worked an incredible amount of hours for over a week, going on very little sleep to clear snow and ice for several businesses in Richmond, and several apartment complexes in Lexington.
I had the opportunity to ride with him one night and do some snow shots for his website. There's an old adage in photography that says, "Bad weather makes good photos." And that was certainly true with this storm. Light from the truck, the salt box, and street lights, would've been washed out in daylight, but it painted my canvas with lots of color after dark. Night photography allows the light that you have to not only be noticed but to scream at the camera.
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A Tale of Two Mentors
I had a few shots in my last blog post from the University of Kentucky's Hall of Distinguished Alumni ceremony. It's always a good feeling for a photographer to see their photos go from a computer screen to an actual printed publication, as I was happy to see so many of my photos used in the university's recent alumni magazine, including the cover shot. I've said before, if you ever run into a photographer who says they don't care about a cover shot, fire them because they're either lying or they're not passionate enough to work for you. I love a good a cover shot! It's what we work for. Sometimes a cover shot can be as simple as a picture hanging on the wall as a 16x20, or it can grace the cover of a magazine. Either way, it's the end goal of what we work for as photographers. There's a certain beauty behind the finished product. I've told my wife before, who is an academic advisor at Eastern Kentucky University, that she should always attend EKU's graduation ceremonies because that's the culmination of all your work during the semester. A cover shot is kind of like that...it's the pinnacle of our work. And yes! It's something worth being proud of.
I was also happy that I got to work HODA with a young man named Logan Briscoe, who is from my former home of Powell County. He's an up-and-coming photographer that I've had the pleasure of mentoring and working with this fall. Working the hall of distinguished alumni presented a unique scenario for me, because I was working with Logan, whom I am mentoring, but also working for me that night was Mark Cornelison, who has been one of my mentors and teachers for over 30 years. And yes, it's hard for me to boss around people who are my mentors, but it's also very gratifying to see your career come full-circle by leading those who taught you and those whom you are teaching all in the same night (please forgive me if I have my whom's and who's wrong. I never did really grasp that concept in journalism school).
There's also something to be said about working under stressful situations. But at the end of the night, you can take a deep breath and pleasure with the satisfaction of knowing that you killed it! I had to create 15 environmental portraits in and around the Gatton Student Center, and then fight some really harsh sun light with the cover shot on the social staircase for the group shot...all in 45 minutes. The original 45 minutes was probably a tad unrealistic, but I was still able to do all of it with Logan's help in an hour and fifteen minutes, while Corn covered the reception.
By the end of the night, the three of us combined, created several thousand images for the good folks at the UK Alumni Magazine to work with, and this was the end product. Go big blue!
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The Powell County Connection: Logan and I at the end of the night after HODA.
I wish I had gotten a selfie with the three of us after HODA, but Corn got away before we could grab one. So here's a few back-in-the-day shots of Corn and I working together. Several years ago, Corn gave me some good advice while we were shooting a basketball game. He said, "Hey Webb, I have an idea...how about we talk duing the action and shoot during the timeouts!" For a brief moment, I was confused, but then it sank in, and I said, "Point taken. I'll shut up." We work well together because we're both smart asses, HA!
The New Salad Days
I've talked before about how my busiest time of the year is always in the spring and I call that my "Salad Days," which is a line from the movie Raising Arizona. This year was a wonky year and many people in the creative industry experienced their slowest year since covid. The spring was extremely slow for me as well, and even scary at times. Every dime that came in went toward paying our bills, and I had to then put other staples of life like, gas, chewing gum, Ale-8s, cheeseburgers, on my credit card, which I've never had to do before.
But then, like the flip of a switch, my summer and fall schedule exploded with work. The life expectancy of a freelance photographer is usually short, but thankfully, I have been able to weather many storms over the last 22 years. Freelance is not for the faint-of-heart because it can be such feast or famine.
Here are a few recent photos that saved my bank account.
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Steve Gates, with the Gates Auto Family, at his flagship dealership, Toyota South, in Richmond. This was actually an international job that I did for the Financial Times of London, England. They were doing a story on Trump's tariffs.
The annual CASA of Clark and Madison counties gala.
The University of Kentucky's Hall of Distinguished Alumni induction ceremony.
A very fun photo shoot with the Davis & Haymond Law Office in Richmond.
UK Healthcare's Stroke Care Network annual conference.
Baptist Health Richmond's Neon Run.
University of Kentucky Innovate's Patent Palooza.
University of Kentucky's Wildcat Wheels Grand Opening & Big Blue Buses & Bikes event.
University of Kentucky CARES, annual summer advising workshop.
University of Kentucky Healthy Kentucky's Be Healthy Bash.
Baptist Health Lexington breaks ground on it's new care facility in Georgetown.
Honor Flight Kentucky
I made my second trip back to Washington D.C. for the summer a few weeks ago with Honor Flight Kentucky. This year marked my 15th Honor Flight, and all have been with Touchstone Energy. This is always such a special trip, to journey with these veterans to see their memorials in our nation's capitol. But the highlight of any flight is the welcome home ceremony back in Lexington at Bluegrass Airport. The electric co-ops that make up Touchstone Energy always come out in full-force, as about a thousand people line the airport corridor from the first ticket desk down to the baggage carousel. The only drawback for me is that I have to set my clock for 2:30 a.m. Besides getting up to go pee and then go back to bed, there's just something wrong with having to wake up at 2:30 in the morning.
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The Greatest Photo I Never Took
Somehow, my iPhone created this photo inside my front pocket a few days ago. It reminds me of something that would've been on a Pink Floyd psychedelic album from the late 1960s or early 1970s. Groove on man! Groove on.
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