Back in August, I was commissioned to photograph exterior and interior photos of the Clinton National Airport. The main terminal and the ticket lobby spans from east to west so I photographed in the images below over two days: Twilight the night before and dawn the morning after.
Because at 4 a.m., you need all three.
In September, I photographed Pine Bluff Mayor Debe Hollingsworth for Arkansas Business in front a pile of rubble. Literally, it's a pile of rubble. Today it still stands. And it will likely be there for months to come.
According to the article, "The city of Pine Bluff debated for months about what to do with the rubble from the privately owned buildings that collapsed in downtown earlier this year. Pine Bluff Mayor Debe Hollingsworth said the owners of the buildings were willing to walk away from the properties instead of paying to remove the debris that had spilled into the street."
When I first moved to Arkansas in 1996, I moved to Pine Bluff. The daily newspaper, the Pine Bluff Commercial, was my first full-time photography job out of college. When it came to the ins and outs of the daily grind of a newspaper, I learned more in three months on the job than three years in college photojournalism. And I don't regret one single bit of it. I met many wonderful people, friends and reporters in that time. Many of which I still see and work with today.
But in the nearly 20 years that has passed since I first drove into Pine Bluff, things have changed. And not for the better. Over the years, Pine Bluff has seen a slow and steady decline in population and signs of urban decay is more common.
And it's very sad to see. Because when you look closely, you can see signs of the beauty in the architecture of what once was.
I was recently contacted by the senior designer for e.Republic | Smart Media for Public Sector Innovation for a photo shoot for the annual Heath and Human Services special report. It is a research report from the Governing Institute and Center for Digital Government.
This year they featured Arkansas own Dr. William Golden, Medical Director for Arkansas Medicaid.
I photographed Dr. Golden at the Arkansas Department of Human Services building in downtown Little Rock. My client e-mailed me a few PDFs of what they used in past issues so I wanted to keep with a consistent look. Many of the sample she sent me were pretty conservative.
After looking around the DHS building, I opted for three locations. I took a chance and used DHS' bright orange stairwell. You don't see things like this too often in a state-run building. I also asked Dr. Golden to wear favorite suit and bring a clean and pressed lab coat.
This is the feedback I received from my client,
"I love the orange! It's not something that you are used to seeing and I think it is a nice change. I also love that you had Dr. Golden wear different clothes."
Below is the original photo, plus the "safe" option they used in their table of contents. I thought for sure they'd use the literal shot, but I am so glad they opted for something different.
