Welcome to the Webbpage Blog. Home of Tim Webb Photography. Here is where you can see what really goes on in my life. Enjoy!
2024 Washington Youth Tour
One of the best parts of my job as a freelancer is that I get to make two trips to Washington DC each year. One of those jobs happens each year in June when I travel with about 60 high school seniors from all over Kentucky, spending a week in DC on the Washington Youth Tour, which is sponsored by the Kentucky Electric Cooperatives. This year marked my 14th trip. I mainly document the week with photos for the state's electric cooperatives to use of their students, but my main job is to create a magazine cover for each co-op to run in Kentucky Living Magazine later in August and September. We usually switch up the location on the cover photos and this year I did them at my favorite site in DC, the World War II Memorial. Good photos tend to create themselves there, regardless of the light or angle. I'll admit, I don't necessarily enjoy riding a bus that many hours because it usually makes me sick, but I thoroughly enjoy being around a group of 17-18-year-olds for a week because it helps to keep me young at heart.
-30-
The trip always starts with a visit to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello in Charlottesville, Virginia. Locals pronounce it Monti-chello, but I have yet to find the H in Monticello. I'm sure the folks in Wayne County could correct them on the proper pronunciation of Monticello.
Next on the agenda was George Washington's home at Mount Vernon.
The Sunset Parade at the Marine Memorial (Iwo Jima statue).
The Kentucky students come together with several hundred other students from all across the country during the NRECA Youth Night. Our Kentucky kids never disappoint!
For years, I sat up a complete light system to do the cover shots, but the last couple of years I've gone with a small speed light (a flash) on a remote and used one of the other chaperones as a human light stand, which you can see Joey Frakes' shadow on the ground in front of me. If I start early enough in the day while the light is calm it works.
I have photographed the WYT for several years with my good friend April Burgess, who works for Inter-County Energy in Danville. She brought her husband Rudy along on the trip this year. They were so funny, and really good people to hang out with! April is easily in the top five of my favorite chaperones (inside joke, ha!).
I don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican...what a great moment when Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader takes a few minutes to come outside and talk to you on the steps of our nation's capitol. I told the students that they will appreciate this photo more and more as they get older in life.
The Great Shoe Exchange of 2024: Blisters are a real thing when walking 5-6 miles in dress shoes.
If the World War II Memorial is my favorite site in DC, then the Holocaust Museum and the Pentagon 911 Memorial are right there with it. Maybe someday I'll do a blog post about these two sites because it would be hard to do either one of them justice here in this post. If you ever go to DC these two are definite must-sees! They both are made up of so many moving parts, but yet, so well-done, so intimate, and so sad!
Back home six days later at Base Camp at East Kentucky Power in Winchester.
A Mere Shadow of Myself
I have shot with two cameras for several years. I keep my 70-200 on my right shoulder and my 24-70 on my left shoulder. It took a long time for me to build up enough equipment to do that. I remember how happy I was when I could finally afford to buy two professional-level camera bodies. People love to ask me why I do it that way instead of just changing out lenses with one camera body. I do it mainly for speed, meaning, it takes time to change lenses out, and on certain assignments, especially with news and sports, you can miss the money-shot while you're changing lenses. Plus, the constant changing of lenses allows more dust to get inside your camera.
I use vertaical grips that have a shutter button on the side, which means the shutter button on my left side is always resting against my hip, and likes to take it's own pictures. Everytime that I'm shooting, I usually come away with about a dozen or so shots of the ground because of my hip. A few weeks ago, I came home after working in Taylor County and downloaded cards and found these. I thought they were pretty cool to be an accident.
The bottom picture looks a little phallic, but I promise I'm not happy to see you, HA!
-30-
Derby 150
With the running of the 150th Kentucky Derby coming up Saturday, I thought I’d do a little reminiscing about the 11 Derbies that I shot for either the Louisville Courier-Journal or the Lexington Herald-Leader, as well as a few corporate gigs that I did at the Derby for Xerox.
I shot my first Derby for the Herald-Leader in 2004, which was the year of Smarty Jones. I didn’t work at Churchill Downs that year, but I covered the Derby at Keeneland in Lexington. Turns out, that place is packed each year for the Derby, and is a great atmosphere if you don’t want to go to Louisville.
The following year, I made it to Churchill and covered the infield during the day, and then the First Turn during the race for the Courier-Journal. The CJ does a piece each year in their print edition called “Around the Track,” which is a series of panoramic photos that show where each horse is during the race, and my part was at the First Turn. Jockey Mike Smith and Giacomo crossed the line at 50–1 odds in 2005 and came within a few feet of me as they made their victory lap back to the winners circle.
I remember it was so hot that year as I sat at my spot on the track, waiting for the race to start, that I paid some kid $5 to go get me a screw top 20 ounce Pepsi. After I drank it, I thought to myself that I may never have an opportunity to sit on the track and photograph the world’s greatest horse race ever again, so I scooped up dirt from the track into the empty Pepsi bottle to take home as a souvenir. Turns out, I made it back to the First Turn nine more times.
One of the most interesting moments of my entire career came in 2008. Just seconds after Big Brown won the Derby, he was making his way back to the winner’s circle, and instead of staying in the middle of the track as NBC’s reporter Britney Eurton interviewed jockey Kent Desormeaux, Big Brown pushed the outrider to the outside rail. He was literally on top of me, as I pushed as hard as I could against the chain link fence behind me to get enough separation for a shot. Technically, it wasn’t the greatest shot ever, but the fact that the Kentucky Derby winner was within inches of my lens, it was a pretty damn good shot!
But the joy ended there, because once Big Brown got past me, I saw that another horse was down on the track, back toward the back stretch. It was Eight Belles. She had to be euthanized on the track for a broken leg. I had a very graphic photo with the track’s vet pulling off the syringe cover with his mouth as he stood over top of the filly. At first, the CJ refused to run it all, which kind of confused me, but eventually they buried five of my photos in the online edition. I had mixed emotions about that because it was news and it happened in front of 158,000 people and on national television. But, in retrospect, it was probably too much reality for the general public, especially after Barbaro had died just two years earlier. Channel 36 in Lexington did an interview with me that explains it more.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time covering the Kentucky Derby. It was never about the money because I only made $250 for the day, which was a great day-rate for newspapers, but was only a fraction of what I make for the day as a corporate freelance photographer. I always loved the atmosphere of
the Derby because it was such a cultural paradox. In the grandstands you could see dresses, suits, cigars, and hats, that literally cost thousands of dollars, or you could go to the infield and some girl in a tank top and a pair of cut off jeans would flash her tits…just for the heck of it! You never knew what to expect in the infield.
I worked a couple of years for Xerox in addition to the CJ and made it up to the fringes of Millionaire Row. While there, I once stood in a buffet line and talked with NFL legend Terry Bradshaw, and once got a glimpse of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. But for the most part, I enjoyed the opportunity to photograph and document The Greatest Two Minutes in Sports, with ordinary people on all sides of the economic spectrum. As long as I live, I’ll never forget what it felt like to stand on the dirt, on the track of this famed venue, listening as they sang My Old Kentucky Home each year. It was one of the greatest treasures of my career! There’s nothing else like it. Weep no more my lady!!!
Eventually, my kids grew up and started going to prom, which was always on the first Saturday in May at their school. As much as I love photography, it’s like a mistress that is constantly pulling me away from my family. I decided that I had been there and done that with the Derby long enough, and that it was more important to be a Dad in Richmond than it was to be one of hundreds of photographers working the Derby in Louisville. With that, I shot my last Derby in 2014, and I now enjoy watching it on my couch, in the comforts of my own home, with a cold beer that didn’t cost $12!
And they're off....
-30-
2014 First Turn
My first First Turn, 2005
Jockey Mike Smith celebrating after winning the 2005 Kentucky Derby with Giacomo.
I still have that Pepsi bottle with dirt from the track in my office.
The Eastern Progress Photo Editors Club working the Derby in 2009. Left to right, Kevin Martin (2000), myself (1991), Mark Cornelison (1989), & Rob Carr (1986).
Working for Xerox in 2010.
Working the infield.
Big Brown stuck his nose in my lens just a few seconds after winning the 2008 Kentucky Derby.
Eight Belles went down during the 2008 Derby.
The parade of owners and trainers before the race is always a specitale at the First Turn!
Calvin Borel celebrates with Super Saver after winning the 2010 Kentucky Derby, in a mudfest, seen below.
This guy from Chicago got creative with sneaking liquor into the infield. Is it a loaf of bread, or is it a pint of bourbon? Hard to tell!
The media center was the largest that I have ever worked in, with about 300 credentialled photographers. But you notice I'm up top looking down on the commoners, ha!, with the Courier-Journal, the Herald-Leader and the Associated Press. And the food there was freaking awesome!!!
Two Louisville Courier-Journal legends here. Michael Clevenger, left, and the venerable Bill Luster, right.
Self Portrait
My last view from the office, 2014.
My 2008 Interview with Channel 36 about the Eight Belles tragedy.
High Fiving Joe Lieberman
I thought about this photo of Senator Joe Lieberman when I heard that he passed away yesterday. I took it at EKU during the 2000 presidential election between Al Gore and George W. Bush. Lieberman was a senator from Connecticut and was Gore’s running mate.
The vice presidential debate between he and Dick Chaney was at Centre College in Danville that October. While Chaney chose to fly into Kentucky on the day of the debate, Lieberman chose to stay in Richmond (in a Super 8 on Exit 87 of all places) and prep at the University. He made a public appearance on campus that brought in the secret service and the national media that included CNN, Fox, and other national affiliates.
The one thing I did well at that point in my career was study other photographers on the national level. I was so excited to learn that the White House was sending one of Gore’s photographers, a woman named Callie Shell, whose work I had followed. Our president Bob Kustra and football coach Roy Kidd wanted to meet Lieberman, and I got to shoot that with Callie Shell, while the rest of the media had to stay back in what was known as the press pool. I was plum ga-ga about it, because I got to stand shoulder to shoulder with Callie Shell.
But the secret service failed to tell me that after that shoot with Kustra and Kidd that I had to go back into the press pool with everyone else. Lieberman then went to the grille in the student center to meet some students, when he saw this little boy who was there with his grandparents because they were both on staff at EKU. Lieberman couldn’t pass up the obvious photo-op and gave the kid a high-five.
Here’s where things went south! I thought to myself, “It’s my campus, and I’m the University Photographer, and I can go anywhere I want!” Not!!! I got down on my knees for a low angle and was moving in on the scene, when the folks in the pool started yelling at me to back off. And then it happened. I felt a big hand on my back as two secret service agents dragged me back. But…I got my shot before they got me.
Looking back on this, if that had happened earlier in my career I would’ve been mortified. I probably would’ve just walked out and never came back and spent the next few weeks in the fetal position. But, I shrugged it off, thinking, I would probably never see most of those people again. And, I was right. A few hours later, they all left and I got my campus back.
-30-
The Ansel Adams Mural Project
About two years ago on April 22, 2022, I made a post about my love for Ansel Adams called "RIP Mr. Adams." I was in Washington DC with my family this past December and finally got to visit the Department of Interior Building, where one of Adams' biggest projects is housed. Visting the Department of Interior was also on the bucket list for my son Nolan who works for the Department of Interior and the National Park Service as a park ranger at Mammoth Cave National Park.
In 1941, then-secretary Harold Ickes commissioned Adams to produce a series of murals of the American Southwest to hang in the department's new building. Although, oddly enough, becaue of World War II they cancelled the project and didn't install them, even though Adams had made over 200 photographs for it, including my favorite "Moonrise Over Hernadez, New Mexico." The murals were finally installed in 2009, and it was stunning to finally see these life sized images in person.
As I said in my 2022 post, I have been influenced by so many photographers during my career. And I feel like I've taken or borrowed a little bit here and a little bit there from each of them, but no other photographer has ever had an impact on me as much as Ansel Adams has.
-30-
