Sweet Celebration

Last weekend I traveled home to Nashville to photograph a friend of mine’s wedding. The past two years, I’ve photographed a half a dozen of my friend’s weddings. Each one is beautiful and sweet in its own way. This was no different. It was a beautiful blue sky weekend. The rolling Tennessee hills welcomed me home and I couldn't be more ellated. The day of the wedding was perfect.

To me, the most precious and beautiful weddings aren't a production; meant to impression and make a show of the couple but a celebration of two families coming together. Adrienne, the bride, was stunning.. she was glowing as any bride would be on their wedding day. Both had such a peace about them and their families were incredible in how the came together to create this beautiful wedding. The setting was the Carton Mansion in Franklin where under an old oak tree, the two became one. Surrounded by their friends and family, you could feel how loved these two were. What an honor it was for me to be a part in capturing this day..

Shelby Lynne and Thunderstorms

I’m sure each of us can remember a show or concert where you experienced something beyond just a good night of entertainment.

Driving home from work that day, the dark foreboding clouds warned what lay ahead for the night; foreshadowing what was to come. Ignoring the hollowing winds and almost sideways rain, I ventured to the Granada Theater to see Shelby Lynne in concert. For eight years, I’ve loved her music. Remembering the first time I heard her album ‘I am Shelby Lynne’ at a HMV music store on Oxford Street in London. The first song on the album found it’s way into me and I’ve been a fan ever since.

There are those musicians who are so much better live than their studio album. This was one of those nights. Waiting for the show to start, a man sat on the stage with his guitar singing ‘Nashville Blues’. I couldn’t help but smile.. another troubadour in search of making it big in Music City. I had caught the end of his set and soon the curtains closed. Looking around, the place was not empty nor was it packed. I wasn’t sure what to expect of those who’d be there.. but was not surprised at the mix she brought- you can’t pigeon hole her music.. nor could you the audience she lured.

Alone I stood waiting for the show to begin ready to lose myself in the music. Not a moment later had the lights dimmed to signal the beginning.. the curtains were raised and there her band began to play… setting the mood, the crowd hushed, and Shelby came out. Wearing a t-shirt and jeans, she wasn’t dressed to impress- good for her. As when she opened .her mouth and began to sing, ‘the look of love.. is in the air.. and I can’t…. ‘ We were spellbound. Swaying back and forth, her hands reaching out, how she made singing look easy. She sang from her soul.

After a few songs, she began to speak with the crowd… you felt like you were in her living room.. she made you feel welcomed and comfortable as if we were the visitors. Her Alabama accent was enduring rather than obnoxious.

Singing Anyone Who Had A Heart you could hear a pin drop in the entire place. The rain began to come down hard and it only added to the atmosphere. She was having fun.. the musicians, each extremely talented yet left the spotlight for Shelby. She ended her second encore with her big hit, The Killing Kind.

Laying in bed later that night with the trees knocking on my window, I realized that the music of the night had taken me somewhere else.. some where deep inside. That is what music does. It has the ability to reach deep within, penetrating walls and striking at the very core of you.



Albums to check out:
I Am Shelby Lynne 2000
Suit Yourself
Identity Crisis
The Look of Love 2008 (Dusty Springfield covers)

a man sets out to chart the world.

A man sets out to chart the world. Through the years, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the images of his own face. – Jorge Luis Borges

Growing up, my dad subscribed to National Geographic. I know I’m not alone in sharing this memory of the yellow binding and images of places far reaching from that of my small town. With each month, came a map of a specific country, region or continent highlighted in the magazine. My dad began pinning up these maps each month on the back of the kitchen door. As we’d sit eating dinner, occasionally, he’d ask us questions in regards to the current map- to see if we’d at all studied it. At the time, I saw it as one of his round about ways to educate us. Little did I understand at that time, what value there was in this learned knowledge. It wasn’t soon after that I too began pinning maps on the back of my bedroom door. To this day, the ‘New Europe’ (from 1992) map is still in my procession. This was back when Czechoslovakia and a Yugoslavia was still in existence yet this was the ‘New Europe’. No longer was there a USSR or a divided Germany. I would often trace imaginary routes of where I’d travel to in Europe some day.

After backpacking Europe in 2000, one of the first things I did when I got home, was to go back and outline the actual route I took throughout Europe. When I moved from that college era home- this was the very last thing I removed from the house, almost reluctant to let go of this chapter of my life.

Well over a decade has passed since I first put that map on my bedroom door. And tonight, I found myself sitting on the floor of my room surrounded by maps of European cities, hotel brochures, restaurant cards, metro tickets, museum passes, postcards and random trinkets all from the past few years of tours. Here I was making room for the next year of tours’ collection. All these places which were far off distant places where now familiar places where I have friends and know the streets better than that of my current address. You never know where life will take you.. when you're willing to go without knowing.