Read on Twitter
So, I looked Amanda up and found her TED talk and it resonated with me because from 2013-2016 I took on a huge personal photography project. I had just finished another similar project of documenting the completion of the crown jewel of a Louisville landmark. https://twitter.com/mikeperryavatar/status/1254467733917442048
Louisville’s waterfront had been transformed from an eyesore of junkyards, dilapidated warehouses, oil storage tanks and even an asphalt plant into a beautiful urban park. Through vision and persistence the Waterfront Development Corporation, a public/private partnership
had transformed the bank of the Ohio River into a beautiful park. The crown jewel was an abandoned railroad bridge that had been decommissioned for decades and stood unconnected between Kentucky and Indiana.
The WDC had saved the bridge for the final phase of the Waterfront Park Project. Their plan was to reconnect Louiville to its northern neighbor Jeffersonville Indiana as a pedestrian bridge that would join the two cities and make it possible to enjoy the riverfront
from both sides of the river. During that time I was going to the park nearly every evening to photograph the sunsets. On e evening while shooting there a thunderstorm developed to the northwest. As it rolled in it divided into two distinct bands. One went south
over Louiville and the other stayed to the north and moved through Jeffersonville. The sun was breaking through under the storm when I glanced behind me to see an amazing mass of clouds rolling across the bridge. I immediately turned my camera around on the tripod
and captured a stunning photo of those clouds bathed in a golden light. In a matter of seconds they were gone but I had captured that fleeting moment. I went home and after processing the image I posted it to my blog. The next day the WDC contacted me
about using the photo on their website. I negotiated a trade of the usage rights to the photo for access to the bridge. I knew that no other photographer had photos of the city from that vantage point and I wanted to be the first to present it to the Louisville public.
After some negotiation I was granted one time access to the construction site and the opportunity to shoot the Louisville skyline from the bridge. On my first day shooting I realized that I had the unique opportunity to record the completion of the pedestrian
bridge but even more exciting was the chance to photograph the men doing the work. I fell in love with construction photography and stayed with the crew documenting each person and the phases of the project through to completion.
As the Waterfront Park Big Four Bridge was nearing completion another bridge was starting just a half mile away that was to span the Ohio River. I decided I was going to document it as well and immediately set about gaining access to the project.
The project wasn’t just to add an interstate bridge but to rebuild the junctions of three interstate highways connected to the existing John F Kennedy Bridge and to build a second bridge east of the city across the Ohio River along with a massive tunnel to connect
it with I-265. I knew from the Big Four Bridge project that I wanted to document every aspect of the Ohio River Bridges Project. I wanted to photograph every man and every woman on the construction crews.
I also wanted to capture the transformation of the interstate infrastructure and the face of Louiville. The entire project involved the replacement of over 200 bridges on the interstate highways, building two cable stay bridges and refurbishing the existing Kennedy bridge too.
In all I wound up shooting over 250,000 photos of the construction. I shot nearly every morning at sunrise, returned many days for major milestones in the progress and shot many nights and sunsets too. I made friends of nearly every trade union member
on the project. Was granted total access to any and every area on the job and even got to be a part of erecting the cranes on the bridges themselves. When the project ended I knew I wanted to mount a show of some of the work so that the men and women who built it
could see what I had accomplished. I mentioned it to my printer, Unique Imaging Concepts, and in October 2016 they asked me to exhibit in their newly completed gallery space. Then they told me they would like to debut it in December 2016. I was elated
until I realized that it was going to cost me at least $9000 to print and promote the show. I didn’t have enough money to do it but I told them to give me week to decide if I could do it. The next morning I had breakfast with a good friend and fellow photographer who,
after hearing my concerns about the finances said to me “do a GoFundMe campaign, you’ll be surprised at how many people in the art and photography community will help you.” I had been posting photos continuously during the three years of shooting and had a
a large following on my blog. To make a very long story a little shorter... I took his advice even though I was skeptical. In less than one month I had raised the entire amount I requested and was able to produce the show on the scale I felt it deserved.
I learned then that if you believe in yourself, and you are sincere, that all you have to do is ask and people will happily support you. If anyone reading this is interested in seeing a lot of the photos head over to http://Speeddemon2.com and take a look at the work. (End)
