Photos and words by Sean Rayford
Get up early if you want to make the most of a photo workshop.
Cards formatted, camera in hand and feet on the ground before first light. That'‘s how I made a portfolio image last week during the 51st annual Mountain Workshops.
On the first full day at the annual photojournalism workshop hosted by Western Kentucky University, I wandered Main St. in Winchester, Kentucky as the sun prepared to peek over the horizon.
Twice, I passed Pit Master BBQ and saw Kenny Allen sitting in the back of the restaurant reading his bible. On my third pass, he had gotten up from the back, so I knocked on the front door.
I introduced myself and he graciously welcomed me inside. We had a lovely morning conversation about nothing and everything.
“I love the smell of this,” he said after adding another hickory log to the fire, “It’s the best perfume in the world.”
Kenny and his daughter in-law, Christa Gross, also serve breakfast each weekday morning at the location where he’s been for 16 years.
It’s a place where the first morning regular puts on the first cup of coffee and helps haul in the morning delivery of supplies. It’s a simple place. A row of booths, bar seating and map on the wall with a few hundred thumbtacks. Maybe, more than a thousand.
Kenny smokes meat every other day and but practices Christian ministry at the Pit Master daily. And it’s a role he navigates without preaching. I get the feeling that Kenny walks the walk.
His smile and positive attitude is infectious. Kenny is ingenuous.
“It’s joy. I like what I’m doing,” he says about work on Main St. and at home. “Some people call it work, but I don’t. I’m out here talking to you, having a good time.”
At Mountain Workshops, participants draw a story out of a hat and have five days to complete it while also making feature photos. My assigned story was centered on afternoon and evening activities, so I spent the morning hunting features. I was blown away when I found that none of my colleagues had been assigned to spend time here.
As the morning grew late and I prepared to head out, one of the the other photographers poked their head-in. Their assigned photo story had fallen through and Kenny was a back-up. But Kenny was a back-up, not because he didn’t want to participate, but because he didn’t respond to a text message the week before.
Which teaches us another important lesson: Just because someone doesn’t respond, it doesn’t mean they dont want you there. But the end, it always requires showing up in person.