I had the chance to explore some of the companies at Innovation Depot here in Birmingham for a story about the incubator itself as well as the innovative work the companies are doing. Here are some of the profile photos, starting above with CEO Devon Laney who was kind enough to join me on the roof of the building. 

See here for the whole story.

David Knight and Michael Eady of, wait for it, KnightEady, a sports marketing company.

Bebe Goodrich of Icebox Coffee.

Lab work at BioGX.

Shegun Otulana of TheraNest.

I recently got to sample some of the delicious and various cured meats (salumi) at Bettola, courtesy of Chef James Lewis. Two stand out items (below) were an absolutely gloriously looking headcheese and a prosciutto he cut for the shoot that had been curing since 2012. Mmmmmmmm.

Headcheese of dreams

leg of delight, a prosciutto of love

I recently had the chance to make some photographs at American (Cast Iron Pipe Company), formerly known as ACIPCO, and it was as amazing as I'd hoped. American is providing some of the pipe for the Panama Canal expansion and Gape Restrepo, above, is their sales manager for the area. 

And this, THIS, is an iron pour. 

Thanks to Business Alabama for the assignment. I love this stuff. 

Stephanie recently proposed that we begin taking each other's portrait on our respective birthdays, so here is installment one from her birthday earlier this month.

And here are bonus shots of her attempting to pose for a portrait with both dogs in her arms (there are more successful attempts, but this one cracks me up) and a couple of shots of our dogs, because how can I resist. 

Fin

Munch

From left, Hunter Lewis, Cooking Light editor in chief; Whitney Wright, Southern Living general manager; and Sid Evans, Time Inc. group editor, in a food studio complex in Birmingham, Ala., that will serve 29 Time Inc. magazines and websites.

I recently visited the good people over at Southern Living to get a glimpse at the future of their test kitchens and photo studios. Once completed, Time, Inc. will be doing all of their food work out of this facility here in Birmingham. Pretty cool. 

Here's an outtake portrait of Sid, Whitney, and Hunter. 

Photographed for The New York Times.

This past weekend my colleague Jared Ragland and I travelled to Charlotte, NC to finally start learning the wet plate collodion process with Scott Stallings. After a few hours of learning and mixing chemistry, Scott walked us through the whole process from start to finish. This is the resulting 8x10 plate of me (the Film Is Not Dead shirt wardrobe is no accident, by the way). 

Much more to come once we get all our ducks in a row, but suffice to say that we are very excited. 

Photographed the crew at Heide Elnora recently. Heidi has had a couple of seasons of a wedding dress design show called Bride By Design over on TLC. 

Good People Brewing Co. is making big strides and Lewis Communications is doing their part to make the beer cans look great. I photographed Michael and Jason from Good People in their new tap room at the brewery and can designer Roy Burns (of Lewis) over at Hop City, a local sud-hub with hundreds of beers. 

Above, Jason and Michael at the brewery. Below, Burns with mock ups of some new can designs.

And here is an outtake of Michael as well as some behind the scenes in the brewery.

Read the full story here.

Back in February I had the great privilege to head out to Seattle to photograph friend and insane musician Dan Phelps for the launch of his new website / creative online space. He and Azurae had us out to their home on Bainbridge Island for a few days where we took it easy, made a bunch of photos, and watched their kids be pretty awesome. 

This was one of those shoots I really look forward to. I really enjoy his music AND he was game to get weird with making photos. I ended up bring out the 8x10 and 4x5 with my gear and we just sort of went with our collective gut. And though it was tough to pick favorites, here are a few I really dig.

Before that, though, I encourage you to check out his music. Here's his Discography and here's his Bandcamp.

His website will be a sort of repository of stuff he's working on and whatever else needs ot come out of his brain. I look forward to that.

I've been thinking a lot lately as well as reflecting on work. While digging through the archives I found these old photos of three heros of mine: Holger Thoss, Philippe Cheng, and John Dolan. These are some snap shots from spending time in the Berkshires with them and a small group of other photographers (as well as incomparable Anne Watkins) during which I had a bit of sea change in part of my mind regarding how I made certain photographs. At that point I'd been shooting professionally for maybe 4 or 5 years and had come to resent some of the clients I kept getting and these guys totally flipped my perspective from being negative to totally liberated. 

Suffice it to say, it's a fond time to remember. If you don't know their work I encourage you to investigate. They're very different people and photographers and all had their own impacts on my brain. Salut, gents.

Holger & John during a discussion.

Four creative forces crammed into one shot.

I always expected Alabama to be among the last states standing in the ridiculous fight against same sex marriage. Out of nowhere we recently had a federal judge rule that the relevant laws in Alabama against same sex marriage to be unconstitutional, and just today the 11th Circuit Court denied the stay for the appeal of that ruling. 

So in honor of today and Alabama's Marriage Equality, here are a few photos from various LGBTQIA stories I've worked on. 

Above is Carolyn Sherer, major advocate from right here in Birmingham. 

Below is Paul Hard. 

Taylor Winfrey and Lauren Jacobs.

And this last one is less about Alabama and more about two friends who got married in California a couple of years ago. Michael and Camille looking amazing. 

I have more but I don’t have time to find them and post them. Either way, WOOHOO!

I made this portrait of Bill Clark last year and I just ran across it looking back through last year's work. It seems the UAB football program has been nixed for now, but I still like this shot. 

Back in October, Design Week Birmingham put on another great multi-discipline creative design week extravaganza. The keynote was by Aaron Draplin, founder of the Draplin Design Company hailing from Portland, Oregon, who is a passionate and talented graphic designer with an infectious personality and a stout build. You may know him from Field Notes or various videos floating around the old internet (mostly of him collecting well designed old shit).

He was in town a while working his ass off for what must have been 4 straight days—I submit it's possible he didn't sleep—and during that time I managed to steal him for a few 8x10 portraits. It seemed appropriate to photograph him with a camera fitting of his personality and penchant for thicklines. 

Here's us together, apparently starting a yellow hats club.

Photo by Shannon Harris.

I've been off the map for a while as it has been a busy couple of months—I've not even thought of blogging—but I thought I'd put up a shot I enjoyed from a recent shoot. 

The story is from the Innovation issue of Business Alabama and this shot is from a local Birmingham company called Vista Engineering. One of the engineering feats they've invented is a diamond coating for medical implants which dramatically increases their durability, primarily for repetitive wear, in this case. 

This is a model skull showing a jaw implant in front the part of the machine where the reaction happens that creates the metal alloy. 

This is the kind of thing that blows my mind. I don't pretend to understand what all is happening, but I love that someone was able to figure this stuff out. So cool.

To read more about it, check out the article here.

Just a little bee friend from one of the hives.

As LGTBQ equality gradually permeates my state of Alabama, I am always excited to contribute in any small way I can. The Huffington Post’s Lila Shapiro has spent quite a bit of time in the South reporting on all things LGBTQ and has filed today a story I photographed a couple of months ago. It covers a lot of ground, but the man above is Paul Hard, professor at Auburn University. Paul lost his husband in 2013, tragically and very shortly after their wedding, and is currently embroiled in various litigations concerning their rights as a married couple in Alabama. 

Check out the whole article here.

A while back my friends Dan and Lauren got married and I made some photos for them. It's hard to resist documenting such a thing on the 8x10. Pictured here is the seriously-just-got-married-couple Dan and Lauren, with mini tyke Leona rounding out the family. 

I photographed on a huge Birmingham advocate, Tom Cosby. Read more about it here. 

I stumbled across a story I shot for Forbes just now. Just thought I'd post an outtake and a link to the story. 

For background, this is Dr. Bruce Irwin, the doc who founded American Family care, the urgent care offices that seem to be everywhere these days. He's based in Birmingham but has 120+ AFCs all over the place (mostly the south) and is continuing to expand all the time. 

Read more about it all over at Forbes.

Still out in Arizona and was super excited to see watermelons being harvested today. We ventured out there to see if they'd let us go out to shoot everything happening, but this is as close as they'd let me get. Bonus, there were beehives all around the fields. Bunches of them. I don't love migratory beekeeping, in general, but I love seeing bees.