Writing

Past work includes:

“Purple Patch: My Home Away From Home,” Gravy, no. 83 (Spring 2022): 32-39. Co-published in The Georgia Review 76, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 236-242.

“The Smallest Museum in Switzerland Is a Window in a 600-Year-Old House,” Atlas Obscura

"Won't You Be My Neighbor?" The Center for Media & Social Impact

“First Person Dispatch: Why I wake up early on Saturdays,” Matador Network

“Photo Finish: Photojournalists’ Hall of Fame Caps Careers,” St. Louis Journalism Review

Photography

My photos have appeared in The Magazine, on National Geographic's food blog, The Plate, on Insider Louisville and the Matador Network, in the Culturegrams database, and in various papers in St. Louis. The Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft used these photos of the Art Car Parade in their archives. Below is a collection of my favorite photos and projects. For more recent images, I update Flickr sometimes.

Day to Day

A drummer entertains participants of a health presentation in Lomé, Togo.

Members of the Nerveless Nocks perform handstands far above the audience at the Kentucky State Fair.

At Idea Festival's Taste of Innovation, Chef Anthony Lamas of Seviche serves caramel popcorn frozen in liquid nitrogen.

Members of the March Madness Marching Band perform at the 2011 Louisville Art Car Parade.

Eli Hall plays pedal steel guitar with 40 Gallon Baptist at the Slant Culture Theatre Festival

Stu "Roscoe Goose" Helm of the Juggernaut Jug Band plays the jug at the Jug Band Jubilee.

A family takes a break at the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco, Texas.

Morning in Louisville's Cherokee Park.

A pilot controls his balloon's burner at the Derby Festival Great Balloon Glow.

Sam Van Atken, a Creative Capital grantee, presents his tree of 40 fruits at Idea Festival 2012 in Louisville.

Strangers

In February 2011, I gave myself a project: photograph a new stranger a day for a month. I fell short of the goal, only reaching 30 sometime in April. I'm always considering starting the project again. For now, here are some highlights.

Stranger(s) 12

Tabitha and Amariah

Stranger 24

AJ

Stranger 27

Dave

Stranger 31

Mfalme Nguni of the Urban Safari in San Francisco

Stranger 34

Peter Beer Slayer

International Women's Day

These 10 images were shown at an International Women's Day event at Louisville's Americana Center in March 2010 and again at a local coffee shop in December 2011.

Under the Neem Tree

Women and children gather along the highway in Sagbiebou.

Maimouna shows off her two-month-old son’s new hat in her home in northern Togo.

Members of a micro-finance group at the group's annual celebration.

Falilah, one of the village nurse’s two wives, makes sausage from a sheep’s intestines. On Tabaski, or Eid al-Adha (or the “Festival of Sheep” in Togo), families slaughter a sheep to commemorate Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac to God. God instead provided a ram for the sacrifice.

A woman sells yams along the highway in Sagbiebou, in northern Togo.

Weaver

Catherine weaves at a vertical loom in Dapaong, northern Togo. She participates in a women’s weaving co-op that is part of a Catholic educational center that includes a sewing school, a soap-making workshop and literacy classes for co-op members.

Students wait outside the Tokoin-Gbonvie elementary school in Lomé, Togo.

Girls run along the two-lane national highway on a Saturday morning.

Students at a girls’ soccer tournament during Sagbiebou’s first International Women’s Day event in 2008.

Neighbors

My Nigerien neighbors, Alima, Djibou and their daughters Izaïfot and Hanatou in Sagbiebou, northern Togo.

Queen of the Night

A 2006 project on Tyler Cross, aka Siren, a student by day and professional St. Louis drag queen by night

Between Classes

Home prep

On certain nights, Cross begins make-up at home

On the Metrolink

Cross rides to East St. Louis on public transportation, carrying his make-up and costumes with him.

Walking to Faces

Cross approaching the club door.

Striped Stockings

Cross pulls on a pair of stockings in the Faces' dressing room. He typically wears six to eight pairs of pantyhose and dance tights to keep his hip pads in place.