Day in my life

As part of my Ethnography class, I had to document a day in my life with 20 images. Starting with being woken up by hungry cat Scraggles, teaching a photo class at Warren East Middle School, Skyping with Nora in France, three rounds of much needed coffee and a game of disc golf in beautiful afternoon light, this is just my typical Monday.

The best place in the world to sit and have a beer

the harbor- Hamburg, Germany

Among The Stars

Among The Stars from Kohl Threlkeld on Vimeo.

My goal with this whole project was to tell a story about people and their dreams. No matter what age a person is, everyone has at least one dream that they hold on to. Some follow their dreams and lead rich, happy lives. Others put their dreams down to pursue something more practical or responsible. The dreams we have tell so much about who we are as individuals because however simple the dream is, it is unique, belonging only to the person who created it.

This tells the story of two people who are following their dreams at completely different times in their lives. Connie is a singer and traveler from Denmark who only wants to play her songs in the street. She thrives off of the energy of the moment and holds onto no hopes of future fame or fortune. Harry is a songwriter who came to Nashville 20 years ago to try and make it as a songwriter. Tasting a little bit of fame, he left to pursue a career in the restaurant industry. Unfulfilled in his job, he decided to return back to Nashville to rediscover his original dream of writing songs.

One day while Connie is playing on the street, Harry sees her and is taken by her unique voice and spirit. He introduces himself and hands her the lyrics to a song that he has held onto for over 20 years, but never found the right singer for. When he returns she has put music to his words and the two form an unlikely and special friendship through their music.

Note: All of the footage in this video is 100% candid. Other than the lighting on the interviews, nothing was staged, set up or influenced in any way.

Thanks so much for watching and please let me know what you think of the video.

New friends and new opportunities

I had the opportunity to go with one of my friends Andrea (the Italian guy in the last photo)where he volunteers in a small town outside Cajamarca. he works with an NGO, that is actually run out of the house that we both live in. The families we worked with were wonderful. Once they found out i was from the US, all they did was ask me if i cold some back and teach them english. So, on wednesday, im headed back to give them copies of the pictures, try to teach them English, and take a few more pictures.

Peru

Well, I just got to Cajamarca, Peru a week ago after leaving Costa Rica. I am staying here for a month, trying to learn spanish and do my best to photograph this incredibly beautiful region located in the Northern Highlands region of Peru. I dont think its a region that receives a lot of attention as it is a 16 hour bus ride from Lima, where you enter the country. And probably 20+ hours from Machu Picchu, the place most people come to visit. There is an interesting mix of people, from the traditional campesiono's that live in the villages and farm but come into the city to sale their goods, to the young, progressive crowd of 20 somethings embracing more of a metropolitian lifestyle. Either way, the city of Cajamarca and its surroundings are full of culture and life.

Here are a few pictures from the last couple of days. They are somewheat surface level, as not speaking the language well, makes it difficult to really immerse yourself in a situation. Its a lot easier to explain why you are there and what your purpose is when you speak the same language as the people you are trying to photograph. Enjoy, and expect more to come.

A New Semester

Im sure its been so long since my last update that most of you stopped looking at my blog altogether, but im back at posting again now that im actually shooting again. Last semester i spent so much time looking at other peoples photography and devoting most of my time to being photo editor of the Herald that it didnt leave much, if any time to shoot. But one thing it absolutley did was make me wish i had the time to just go shoot. Not for class or anthing else but just for myself. And now that i have that time, and hopefully some more knowledge, im gonna shoot.

This first image is from the recent storms that passed through Ky and left thousands without power. To see more pictures and listen to some great audio go to www.chherald.com and please, PLEASE, check back here for more pictures to come.

Kohl

Tough Decisions

If you paid attention to the news at the right time last Wednesday, you might have noticed for a brief moment that there was a shooting at WKU. Reports of armed gunmen and shots fired were flying around the national media. This sent our campus into chaos and frenzy as swat teams and media crews converged at Western. For a long while we all believed there were gunmen on campus, thankfully it turned out to be somewhat of a false alarm. It was finally sorted out and believed to be a fight between 20 or so people that happened at 2 locations, and although several people came forward claiming to have seen/ heard gunshots, none were confirmed. Although the national media soon found that it wasnt jucy enough for the, it was still big news for our campus because of some of the events that happened while our school was on lockdown. The most significant being several students were detained at gunpoint in what could be described as overkill. When one girl said to a cop while he arrested her friend "You cant do that" he said, "If you want to be a part of this, ill make you part of this, and threw her on the ground" Thats our front page photo. It was a difficult decision after considering all of the great images, but the above layouts is how it ran in our paper. We chose the photo for the front because it best illustrated that confusion and chaos of the day. It also portrayed an event that hardly anyone on campus witnessed, and we felt was important. Overall our photographers did a great job and got the most story telling images possible. It was great practice for me as well because i found out just how stressful this job can be, but also how rewarding. And no one had to get shot.