In Progress with Randy Hayes

Another video is coming soon! Here's a handful of favorite stills from my video interview (and studio visit) with artist Randy Hayes. Hayes' video will be the third in a series of short videos that highlight some of the locals who are working to revitalize my hometown of Holly Springs, MS.

Collierville Christmas Home Tour

Some of my favorite photos from this year's "Christmas in Collierville Home Tour", shot for The Collierville Herald.

Featured below are photos from The Stratton House and The Bonk Home, two of six featured locations on the tour.

In addition to the home tour, tourists were within walking distance of Christmas events at Collierville Square, which included pictures with Santa Claus (pictured below), horse-and-carriage rides, and holiday sales at local shops.

Join the Flickr Group

Soon after I relocated to Mississippi, I started looking for an online "hub" where small town photographers gathered to share their work. I found one or two groups on Flickr, but nothing that focused specifically on photojournalism. So, I decided to create one.

"Small Town Photojournalism" is a place to share the photos that do, and don't, make the "official" cut for newspaper publication. It's a space to be inspired by other small town photographers.

I'm proud to say that, even though I'm in and out a lot, this group continues to grow, and includes some some of my favorite Flickr photographers! These guys are worth a follow, and the Small Town Photojournalism group is open to join: https://www.flickr.com/groups/smalltownphotojournalism/

The Tracks of Generals Tour

On December 4th, the Holly Springs Depot presented its first annual tour, "The Tracks of Generals". The tour featured several Civil War reenactors in character, and showcased the sites of Van Dorn's Raid: the Holly Springs Depot, and downtown square.

I volunteered to photograph the event on behalf of the Depot. Here's a few of my favorite photos from the event.

Lost River Mercantile

My video interview with Andrea Edgeworth of Lost River Mercantile is now live! Hear what brought Andrea to Holly Springs, and take a look inside her western-inspired shop!

See the video here:

Lost River Mercantile from Megan Wolfe on Vimeo.

And be sure to follow Lost River Mercantile on Facebook for upcoming events, new products, and more:
https://www.facebook.com/Lost-River-Mercantile-832217643560491/?fref=ts

In Progress at Lost River Mercantile

This week I've been so excited to pursue some of my own personal projects - including shooting and editing video interviews with our Holly Springs' locals. More details to come soon, but for now, here's some of my favorite still images from an interview with Lost River Mercantile's Andrea Edgeworth, one of Holly Springs' newest additions.

Haunted Holly Springs

On October 30th, Holly Springs and it's newest addition, the Lost River Mercantile, hosted the first ever Haunted Holly Springs ghost tour. The tour boasted a record number of over 300 tourists, with proceeds donated to charity.

Pictured below is the Lost River Mercantile and Andrea Edgeworth, owner of Lost River, and co-creator of the Haunted Holly Springs tour. Andrea led the tour I accompanied and photographed (unfortunately, I did not catch up with co-creator and tour guide Lisa McCarter, or tour guide Phillip Knecht, until the tour's conclusion.. both were in costume and occupied with their own tour groups). 

Talk about a fun event to photograph!

Chicago Sabbatical & iPhone Photos

This September, I took a trip to Chicago on a work-sabbatical. My goal was to examine the work I've done this year, and to question whether or not I'm still on track. If not, I went prepared to audit my time and draft a new plan for 2016. Happily, it didn't come to that. I can report that things are right where I need them for next year. I just have to be patient, and forge ahead.

But aside from the serious stuff, I took plenty of time to experiment with my iPhone street photography. With subjects so readily available, I couldn't waste a moment. Brisk walks to morning coffee were opportunities to learn about form, and sculpting light. I crave the day I'll have that again on a permanent basis.

Here's some of the street photos I shared on Instagram during my trip. These were initially shot with the old-school Hipstamatic260, and later texturized / tinted with Mextures. I usually don't go this far with editing, but I wanted to try accentuating the story of each image. Over all, I think they're successful and fun, but I probably won't make heavy-editing a habit.

"The Depot" on Adobe Slate

Following the completion of "The Train Depot" video, I realized I also wanted to showcase more of the photos and stills from the shoot at the Depot in Holly Springs. Adobe Slate is perfect for that, and yes, I'm still in love with this iPad app. So, here we go, a simple multimedia article put together on "The Depot", via Adobe Slate. Click here, or the above picture to check it out.

Tracks of Generals Tour at the Depot

This December 4th, the Holly Springs Depot presents a unique tour based on Van Dorn's Raid of Holly Springs. As the flyer states: "come walk in the tracks of generals," as the tour follows Van Dorn and General Grant through town.

For more information, contact the Holly Springs Tourism & Recreational Bureau at: www.visithollysprings.com
Or call: 662-252-2515

Collierville Reads: All A-Bot STEM

Even in small towns or suburbs, you get assignments that are pretty freakin' cool. Sat. Sept 12th, Collierville Reads hosted "All A-Bot STEM" at the Collierville Library. The event was inspired by this year's reading selection, "Spare Parts", by Joshua Davis, and was an opportunity for younger children to receive hands-on learning from highschool kids involved in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). 

Activities included building robots, racing homemade cars, and learning basic programming. Photos published in the Collierville Herald.

The Holly Springs Depot

After being on the back-burner for a few months, I finally wrapped up my video about the Holly Springs Depot! I had so much fun putting this little project together, and I learned a lot from editing it (not to mention what I learned about the Depot!). I feel especially grateful to have been given the opportunity to shoot it as a personal project. Big thanks to Gwen Wyatt and Alexandra Ashmead for putting up with my visits!

See the video here:

The Train Depot from Megan Wolfe on Vimeo.

And don't forget to follow the Holly Springs Depot for construction updates:

http://thehollyspringsdepot.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/The-Holly-Springs-Depot-377947755685850/timeline/

Product Shots for Jasmine Art Glass

Product photography and client media are my world right now, and one of my biggest projects has been to photograph the (very) extensive collection of Jasmine Art Glass. Decorative and affordable, Jasmine Art Glass has everything from serving platters, to eye-catching centerpieces, vases, and more.

Below are a handful of photos from my ongoing shoots with Jasmine Art Glass.

Published in Snap Magazine

These last two months, I've taken on extra freelance photography work and haven't had much time to blog or work on personal projects. I'll catch up soon (and post some recent work), but for now: I was delightfully surprised to find two of my Hipstamatic photos published in the current issue of Snap Magazine!

The current issue (Summer 2015), "Bon Vivant", can be downloaded for free through the Apple Newsstand for the iPhone or iPad. You can also view it here on Hipstamatic's website.

Snap Magazine is published by Hipstamatic, and focuses exclusively on Hipstamatic and Oggl mobile photography.

Adobe Slate is "For the Birds"

Described as a way to "..transform your next book report, newsletter or travel adventure into a delightful read on any device..", Adobe Slate is a brand-new iPad app that helps users put together multimedia photo essays in just a handful of minutes.

I would describe it as "plug-and-play". Slate is an extremely user-friendly app (effectively dummy-proof), and you don't need anything more than photos and some text to create a cool, parallax-esque, multimedia article. My only gripe is that I wish I could import video as well as photos, but hopefully, that's on the way soon (especially since Adobe Voice, Adobe's "plug-and-play" video creation program, was launched around the same time).

To test out the app, I dug up the text and photos from a couple of my old "For the Birds" articles, and recomposed them into Adobe Slate Stories. The results are below (and were a lot easier to create than my original PDF articles).

Overall, Slate is a fun app for photo-geeks, and I'm looking forward to using it again on more stories.

Pictures from the Depot Tour

I don't always get pictures of me, well, taking pictures. When I do, it's usually a shot of me contorted in the floor (what I call "photographer's yoga") trying to get a shot. I can be shockingly compact sometimes, so I totally understand the comedy of it. BUT, I am really excited when I get a couple of photos of me simply standing.

Here's a couple of photos from my visits to the Holly Springs Depot. My first visit, I toured with artist Randy Hayes and shot some of my favorite still photos (a couple are on Flickr now). During the second visit, I caught some short video clips for a small personal project (coming soon!).

The pictures in this post were taken by Alexandra Ashmead of the Holly Springs Depot. More are featured on the Holly Springs Depot blog at:

http://thehollyspringsdepot.blogspot.com/2015/05/april-artists.html