The constant in life right now is making photos of Charlie. Figured I’d share a few here.

Hard to believe the boy is one year old today. Watching him go from a little crying blob into a dude who is walking around with feelings and attitudes and lots of hair has been surreal.

Happy his-birthday to Stephanie too. Everyone would be so lucky to have you as a mother. And happy Charlie to me too. None of this is easy but we feel so cared for by our family and communities.

Also he totally has a drool blob on his lip, just like last tintype. Glad he’s consistent.

Jared Campbell descends Rat Jaw on his first lap.

The Barkley Marathons recently concluded for this year and, incredibly, five runners finished, including the first female finisher. Having witnessed this insanity in person (as a photographer, certainly not as a runner) for mental_floss magazine back in their print days, I really cannot believe five people finished.

I was talking about the marathons today with a friend and realized I’d never formally posted images from the project (though I’d sworn I had). Winslow Taft was the creative director and went with me to Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. We shot over the course of a couple of days and I shot some on 8x10 to tip my hat to the effort the runners (and support folks) had to endure. Whatever effort I put it was dwarfed on exponential levels, without question.

Tons more detail is available at their original post (though I think some of the photos are broken now).

Laz starts the race by lighting a cigarette.

Gary “Lazarus Lake” Cantrell

Karl "Raw Dog" Henn and Laz at the trailhead sign near the yellow gate.

The entry process and fee are an open secret, though how to begin the process is elusive. One requirement of “virgin” racers is to provide a license plate. Those are displayed as a huge hanging installation.

Ascent

Ascent, descent, ascent. There’s so much elevation change in this race it’s like climbing Everest. Twice. At least you’ve got more oxygen and less altitude?

One part of the race goes through the prison (James Earl Ray’s escape and failed fleeing of this prison is the inspiration for this mad ultrarun).

Along the way the runners have to collect the page that corresponds to their bib number out of a book hidden along the loop. Each loop they have a new bib number, but the vicious titles of the books remain the same—each a reminder or encouragement to drop out. Laz is a sadist as much as the runners are masochists.

When you drop out or fail to make your loop in time, you are “tapped” out with the playing of Taps on a bugle.

The year we were there, only one man finished. Jared Campbell.

This is Jared finishing his 3rd loop back in 2014. This year, 2024, he finished again (his fourth finish) as well as four other people. That breaks the finishing record for The Barkley and also provided the first finish for a woman, Jasmin Paris. Paris was the last to finish and hit the yellow gate with less than two minutes to spare in the 60-hour journey.

Shane Balkowitsch and I spent part of a day recently in his incredible, purpose-made wet plate studio in Bismarck, North Dakota and it proved to be a tremendous experience. It’s really fun to watch another practitioner of this odd and old photography method do his work, but better than that is feeling the deep, romantic current flowing from Shane to his subjects through his ambrotypes. I gleaned a lot of knowledge but really just had a great time. If you’re in Bismarck, North Dakota, go see him. Commission a plate, buy a book, talk shop. Whatever. It’s a worthwhile journey.

_

He also generously let me to make his portrait (using his amazing Gibellini 8x10). Happens to also be my first ambrotype and I gotta say, the feel of glass in the hand is great.

Shane Bart Balkowitsch, May 8, 2024, at Nostalgic Glass Wet Plate Studio.

I spent some time recently with the lovely folks at @bottegabham / @fonfonbham. It’s always fun to watch them work.

I’m so excited to share some recent work for a steel recycling company called ShearWorx. I got a call from Michael at The Modern Brand about the chance to watch giant machines chop up steel to prep it for being recycled and couldn’t get on board fast enough. ShearWorx has all this powerful machinery to break down everything from I-beams to huge chunks of mold off-pours to—and this is true—entire rail cars. Unreal.

So my buddy Daniel and I packed up and drove to an area of Arkansas that produced tons of steel and got to (safely) party with some heavy duty stuff. Here are a few images I love. I have also put together a small gallery of the work.

Charlie just keeps on growing and I realize every other post lately has been about him, but every other second of life is also about him at this point, so it fits the pattern.

I’ve also had some fun projects come up lately. One project that I hope I can post soon was photographing steel recycling / shearing / torch cutting in Arkansas—so lot’s of sparks and smoke everywhere—some fun portrait shoots, and a few interesting architectural highlights too.

For now, the boy.

I made some time to open up tintype sessions recently and am happy to have gotten to flex those muscles again. It’s been a few months and I can forget how fun it is.

Got to see Roscoe briefly this morning. Always worth sharing that dude.

It’s genuinely the Charlie show now. Our whole lives. Finally got the boy in front of the ole tintype box and he crushed it. CRUSHED IT. Look at this kid!

Snoozin’ on the porch.

We’re three months on from the birth of Charlie and the cliché of time flying by is totally true. We’ve had plenty of challenges but he’s healthy and growing fast. He started smiling a while back. Heartbreaker!

A week ago I got to witness Stephanie bringing our son into the world and be supported by an incredible team of women. Truly awe inspiring. Being able to participate as the partner gave me a profound new appreciation for everything that is childbearing.

Our midwife Lauren (@birminghamhomemidwife) and doula Allison (@bhmborn) were nothing short of sublime. Supportive, knowledgeable, comforting, empowering, calming, relieving, healing.

I can’t begin to describe watching Stephanie through this. Ineffable power and trust in herself and her body.

And apparently now we are parents to a little nugget we’re calling Charlie Roux.

Huge bonus to have my sister Nicole nearby to help us through the first night/morning.

We feel so incredibly supported and loved by our communities.

(Last photo of our little family was made by Allison Miller, our doula.)

We’ve had a wild few months over here and I realized I’d failed to mention WE’RE HAVE A DAMN BABY.

Stephanie is due in like 3 days and we’re pretty ready. I’ve been documenting a bit along the way and one of my favorite photos I’ve made is this portrait of her with one of our dogwoods. As bonus, she took a photo of me in my process (so this is sort of a poptpop situation, just barely off). My dear friend Bryan printed these both for me and they’ll eventually be hanging in the nursery.

As much as has been going on*, I imagine far, far more is headed our way.

*it feels like we’ve done everything. Cleaned everything possible, even redid the siding on part of the house. Converted a guest room / office into a nursery. Our room and bathroom has never been cleaner. We’ve traveled. We’ve had ridiculously generous showers thrown for us. We even had a crawfish boil that also served as a celebration for Steph’s mom finally (really) retiring and Steph’s sister getting engaged….AND her aunt having a birthday. And earlier this week we even took off honey from our hives (bonus photo of Steph at 39 weeks in beekeeping gear below).

We’ll have a name once we meet him, but for now we’ve been calling him Rufus T. Barelysheath (that comes from my 30 Rock, a show I have all but memorized).

Spent some time working in the Nashville area recently and found myself drawn to interesting shadows, so I made a self-portrait on the ground.

Working with potter Sam Harley lately and ended up making a couple of plates the other day. Kind and talented dude.

There’s a great piece on southeastern conservationists in the current @gardenandgun and I had the pleasure of photographing one of them. Jason Thorneberry works for The Nature Conservancy and is responsible for the the fresh waterways in Alabama, and they are working on reconnecting the Cahaba river to the gulf, by way of other rivers. Restoring these water systems could help reinvigorate species that are threatened or possibly extinct.
There’s a lot more great work being done out there and you’d can catch more of it in the October/November issue.
This is Jason in his natural habitat—the headwaters of the Cahaba River in Trussville, Ala.

---

I also recently took a trip down to Greensboro, Ala. to visit @eatabadirs / Sarah Cole for @gardenandgun. Sarah has a lot going on in this small arts town, including her eatery that incorporates tastes her Egyptian roots as well as her non profit called @blackbeltfoodproject.
Known for her sweets, she prepared a four-layer lavender coriander cake with delightful little figgy decorations for our shoot.
We most certainly had a good day in her home kitchen.
Thanks to @maggiebrettkennedy and @margaret_h_dominick for sending me out to contribute to this beautiful issue.

Whenever I work with Andi I try to create a new portrait of him. Here are a couple from this week.

Also, he recently had the cover of the Washington Post Magazine, so way to go buddy.

I recently photographed Southern Living’s own Editor in Chief, Sid Evans, on location at the food studios and the prop room. These are a couple of my favorite from the day.

My friend Josh Miller recently took a new posting as the Senior Food Editor at Southern Living and we made some portraits to mark the occasion. I look forward to watching this next chapter of his food career.

As a bonus I sneaked in a couple of sheets of 8x10 on my weirdo wide-angle camera.