Furnace Fest Photos!

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For years I’ve shot concerts and festivals for bands, management companies and brands like Verizon, Live Nation and Rolling Stone.

I’ve also been a fan of, and involved in, the punk/hardcore music scene since I was in high school. So two of my passions collided when I was asked to shoot Furnace Fest 2022. Furnace Fest is a hard music festival that originally ran from 2000-2003. Then it was slated to happen for a 20 year anniversary in 2020, but was postponed twice due to the COVID pandemic. Finally in September of 2022 it returned to the grounds of the Sloss Furnace in Birmingham, Alabama.

Below are just a few of the hundreds and hundreds of photos I took over the course of the 3 days. Check out the Furnace Fest site for more info on this years fest…

Nashville Corporate & Executive Headshots & Portraits

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I recently added a new section on the site showing a portion of my corporate headshot portfolio. I never used to advertise or promote this kind of work, but as Nashville and Williamson County continues to grow the requests become more frequent.

There are so many businesses starting up and/or moving to the Franklin, Brentwood and Nashville areas that as the requests to do corporate headshots and portraits become more frequent I felt the need to create a portfolio page specific to that need.

Photo Shoot for Spark Amp

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I recently did a couple of different photo shoots for the Spark Amp, which is a very cool and extremely popular guitar amp made by Positive Grid.. It has the ability to recreate thousands of different guitar, pedal and amplifier sounds & effects, all in a small package.

We did these shoots in Nashville at two different homes. We used the location service AVVAY to find the great locations.

Talbots Catalog Photo Shoots

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I’ve recently been shooting several catalogs for luxury clothing brand Talbots. Talbots has been a dream client, not only because of their high standards and quality reputation, but also due to how incredible they are to work with.

The rest of the catalogs haven’t come out yet, but here’s a few pages from the August 2020 edition that was just released. To see the entire catalog click HERE. I shot everything in the catalog except for the product photos.

2020 Instagram Change

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I’ve had my Instagram account for several years and I’ve never been quite happy with it. I struggled with having it represent my voice, artistically speaking.

So at the beginning of this year I burned it to the ground, deleted every image on (several hundred) and stared over. It felt so good to have a blank canvas on which to build a new feed. I had an idea for several months that I wanted to try and I was finally going to implement it.

The idea was to create an ever-evolving story of images that were united by theme, color and mood. It took me awhile to figure out the technical specifics on how to make my vision come to life, but once I did it became a seriously fun project.

Expanding this ever increasing universe of photos has become a nice creative outlet for me. I post a new row of 3 photos about 2-3 times a week. Please take a look and follow me on Instagram to see how this ambitious feed continues to grow and evolve.

Currently I’m showcasing my celebrity and entertainment photography. Soon I will switch to sports and lifestyle photography. You’ll see a lot of photos that aren’t on my web site.

And as always keep an eye for my Instagram stories; that’s where I show a very random assortment of day-in-the-life of things as well various other things.

Follow me HERE

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Nashville Before and After COVID-19

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I did some street photography of Downtown Nashville back in August 2019 just for fun. Then in March 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic closed everything down I went back to the Lower Broadway section where I took the first photos and recreated the first ones, showing the after effects of the shutdown.

These are more of an editorial photography approach as opposed to the commercial photography that I normally shoot.

Here are just a few of the photos. As you go through them you’ll see that the 1st ones were taken in August 2019 and the 2nd ones were taken in March 2020.

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Nashville Lower Broadway Photography

Nashville August 2019

Nashville March 2020

Bethel University Shoot

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In September of last year I did a 2 day lifestyle photo shoot for Bethel University in McKenzie, TN. The great folks at Lewis Communications were in the process of creating a new web site for Bethel and they needed new photos of the campus and student life.

Along with people from Lewis and Bethel and my two assistants we covered the entire campus from one end to the other capturing all of the photos on our shot list as well as catching some great impromptu shots.

Here are a few screen shots of the photos are being used on the Bethel web site.

Product Photography

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I’m known primarily as an advertising and entertainment photographer, but I actually do quite a bit of product photography as well. It’s a whole different process and mindset from shooting portraits of people, but I enjoy the change. I’m always trying to incorporate ideas & concepts from human portraits into product shots and vice-versa.

Two of the companies that I do product photography for are Paddywax and DesignWorks Ink. You can find their products on sale at Target, Urban Outfitters and other stores. I love working with their team and it’s always a good feeling to shoot for a company who’s products you both use and believe in.

Here’s some shots from the many shoots I’ve done for them over the past few years.

CLICK the image below to slide through the gallery…

Youth Lifestyle through the decades...

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Of all the things I shoot, lifestyle photography is by far my favorite. 75% of what I do is some sort of lifestyle photography for advertising purposes.

So in September of 2018 I got the idea to do a series of lifestyle images that looked as though they were shot in various decades past. I just finished the project and you can see the results HERE.

To create photos that look authentic to the individual time periods took some work, including buying and making my own props. I wanted to include a running theme of including the Coke, McDonalds and Volkswagen brands in each shoot since they are some of the most iconic brands that have spanned several generations. On the 70’s however I decided to go with a custom van rather than a VW Beetle or Thing.

For the props I started with items I could find on eBay. I bought Coke products in bottles and cans as well as things like actual vintage McDonalds styrofoam chicken nugget containers. One of the props I bought in a store in Nashville was an unopened bottle of Tab from the 70’s. What I couldn’t find I made. With the exception of the chicken nuggets, I designed and printed all of the McDonalds packaging including; bags, sandwich containers, french fry bags and cups. I also printed the coke can for the 1960’s shoot that you see in the VW van. I also employed various Photoshop and real world techniques to achieve the look of old snapshots.

Some of the props I either bought or made…

Some of the props I either bought or made…

Model selection as well as Wardrobe and Hair/Makeup were key and I’m so proud of the team I had working with me on all of this.

Here’s a behind the scenes video featuring the various photo shoots.

All photos were taken in the Nashville area with a Canon 5D Mark IV and Profoto B1 and/or A1’s. I didn’t want to “cheat” and use film for these shoots. I wanted to show that I could re-create these time periods using modern technology.

Ascend TV Commercial

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The amazing folks at Lewis Communications hired me and my team to shoot this TV commercial a couple of months ago, and it just started airing this week. It'll be on CBS, NBC, ABC stations as well as Comcast and Hulu. Keep an eye out for it.

It was produced by Katie Peninger and directed by Tom Johnson of Lewis. The only thing I didn't shoot is the drone footage of the Ascend Amphitheater.

I used to shoot a lot of video and I seem to be getting back into it more and more.

Who's eligible to join Ascend Federal Credit Union? If you live in Middle Tennessee and want to get the most out of your money, there's a way for you to join. At Ascend, we share our profits with our members. The more you bank, the more you could earn.

Erwin Brothers Photo Shoot in Nashville

I had the privilege of doing a branding photo shoot of the Erwin Brothers who own and run the production company Kingdom Studios.

The brothers are writers and directors who have made movies such as: October Baby, Woodlawn, I Can Only Imagine, American Underdog and others. It’s always fun to capture people who are used to being behind the camera.

The photo shoot was done at my studio in Nashville, Tennessee.

Ascend Federal Credit Union

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2 Weeks ago Ascend Credit Union launched a brand new version of their website. Lewis Communications spent over a year crafting and building the site, which is thousands of pages deep. Besides being known for their great banking services, their name is also easily recognized by the Ascend Amphitheater in Downtown Nashville where numerous bands and musicians play year-round.

I was honored to spend 3 days shooting photos that woulds populate much of the site. Below are a few of the moments we captured, both at their corporate offices in Tullahoma, TN as well as my studio outside of Nashville.

D1 Sports Photo Shoot

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Being someone who loves fitness and works out 4-5 times a week, I was very excited to help D1 Sports build a catalog of images for their franchise of over 25 locations. D1 specializes in preparing people of all ages to be elite athletes.

I’ve been doing sports photography for over 15 years, most of it staged shoots like this one. But I’ve also captured athletes competing in live events such as when I shot the X-Games for 2 years. Whether staged or live action, I learned a huge skill shooting sports photography, and that is, how to perfect the art of timing.

When you’re shooting an athlete you have to hit that precise moment that will become frozen in time as “the shot.” I took the principals of sports photography and applied them to working with people in all situations. So now when I’m shooting a person, I’m fully aware of his or her unique and individual timing.

No two people move with the same rhythm and it’s a photographers job to read each person’s timing to make sure the moment captured is the best one.

For this shoot we used actual D1 members rather than models and we shot this at their Nashville/Franklin location.

Recent Photo Shoots in Nashville

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Capturing artists in their element is one of my favorite things to shoot. An artist working on their music in a recording studio reminds me a lot of the time that I spend in my photography studio creating my photos. Here's a few photos from some recent shoots that I've done in various recording studios... First here's a screen capture from Canon's web site of a photo shoot I did for them of Mat Kearney. It was truly an honor to shoot for Canon, a company I've been loyal to for almost 15 years now. And of course Mat was super to work with. This shot was taken at his home studio in Nashville.

Mat Kearney for Canon Camera

Mat Kearney for Canon Camera

Next up is one from a fun shoot I did with Cole Swindell at Sound Emporium Studios in Nashville. Cole was a very chill and easy to hang with person. He made it a lot of fun.

Cole Swindell U.S. Cellular

Cole Swindell U.S. Cellular

And then I spent the day with Gavin Degraw shooting him for Snapple. Gavin was a hilarious and super fun guy to work with. I could have sat and listened to him telling funny stories for hours.

Gavin Degraw for Snapple

Gavin Degraw for Snapple

And lastly here's one of Atlantic Records artist High Valley that I shot at Dark Horse Studios in Franklin, just south of Nashville. To say that these 2 guys (who are brothers) are fun, is an understatement. The day was filled with laughter and it made my job a lot easier.

High Valley for U.S. Cellular

High Valley for U.S. Cellular

Tennessee Titans Photo Shoot

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I spent the first part of my life in the New England area (Boston, New Hampshire, Maine) so I'm naturally a fan of the Red Sox, Bruins and Celtics. I have however never been a fan of the Patriots. I can't explain why; they just never clicked with me. I moved around a lot over 11 states, but it wasn't until I moved to Nashville that I finally found an NFL team that I felt like I could call my own.

That team was the Tennessee Titans. So I was super excited when they called me to take the player photos for their 2018 season. What made it even more special was the fact that they were was getting brand new uniforms designed by Nike. There was a lot of buzz, especially around Nashville about the new look of the uniforms. Rumors were flying, and all of them were wrong.

As I was brought in to shoot the Titans for the new season in the new uniforms, it was great to be one of the first people to ever see the new looks. I couldn’t believe I was seeing the uniforms even before the players did.

Doing sports photography is a lot like shooting celebrities; the players time is valuable so you have to have quick instincts and know when you’ve got the shots that you need and move on. We shot the whole team over the course of 4 short days. I’ve always thrived on pressure, so when the owner of the team, Amy Adams Strunk was standing there watching us shoot for 2 of the days it just made me get in the zone all the more.

Here's a few of the photos. They’ve been featured on TV, in print, the Titans web site and their social media. But my favorite has been seeing them printed several stories tall on the sides of Nissan Stadium.

Tennessee Titans

Tennessee Titans

Tennessee Titans

Tennessee Titans

Tennessee Titans

Tennessee Titans