Back in 1993 I had the honor of working with John Hiatt producing photography for his “Perfectly Good Guitar” album https://www.thejohnhiattarchives.com/album/perfectly_good_guitar/index.html. The photographer I was assisting was Mark Seliger https://markseliger.com/ and we were shooting on John’s Tennessee farm property outside of Nashville. The whole crew had great energy for this project. So much so that John started running through the fields while Mark was photographing him. As the assistant that meant that I had to keep the photographer shooting with a Pentax 67 camera loaded with 220mm film. This is a challenging camera to load with film since it is like a 35mm that has been supersized. However, out through the fields we go with me in tow loading and labeling film. Thank God I rose to the occasion and we keep the energy high. It was a fun learning experience for me as a growing photographer to learn from a talented artist like Mark Seliger.

Flash forward 17 years and now it was my turn to photograph John Hiatt. Of course, he didn’t remember me but he had great positive energy like he did years before. Sometimes life can bring things full circle in a beautiful way. I’ve learned to be grateful for the accomplished creative people I’ve gotten to know on this crazy photography journey.  

Shooting rugs for a client this week made me recall this memory and photo I shot back in 2010.