PAINTSVILLE-I had a solid two weeks of travel and Paintsville was my first stop. I had met Kate Dickson, the publisher of the Paintsville paper in Tuscaloosa and had looked forward to seeing her on the trip. After finding the paper I was told that the weather was turning bad and that I should shoot as soon as possible. I photographed several things around the town but nothing that I thought really stood out. The next morning, the rain had cleared and it was a wonderful day, so my guide for the day and I got off to an early start and we came across this scene with the car. It's one of my favorite images from the trip but I am a little disappointed in the reproduction of the car- it tends to wash out a bit in the book. One of the other areas that I photographed was people working at the paper, so we tried to make the smaller inset images a mix of community and newspaper. Here, it shows the circulation manager, Phillip Glover. One of the most unusual things about the Paintsville paper is that their darkroom was an old frozen meat locker. It was a bit creepy walking into it, but it was actually quite functional (and DARK!).

I could tell after a moment or two that Alan seemed to be really interested in what we'd done. After looking the book over for a few minutes he looked at me and said "YOU did this?". He was impressed with the presentation and said that he thought that a lot of companies  would pay well to have their presentations look the way that this one did. So, we started looking for them.

A week or two went by and I got a call from a man named George Newman. George is the president of a trucking company in a little town called Vernon that's about 60 miles north of Tuscaloosa. I met George and his partner, Mike Miller at the local "O'Charlie's" and brought the book that we'd done for the Mercedes project. They told me on the phone that they wanted a book to present to chemical company executives and Alan Harper from the IDA had recommended that they talk to us.

I showed him the work that we'd done and some of the industrial photography that I had in my portfolio. We were hired to do the work on the spot and it was a gigantic shot in the arm for the business. We got the book out under the deadline and to this day, I think it's some of the best industrial photography that I've done. The book was full color and hard bound cover with a gold foil embossed logo. The book was a huge success and they gleaned enough business from their presentations to proceed with their business plans.

Shortly after finishing up the Trucking book, Phillip Smith came into my office to say hello. I showed him the book and explained that the printing had been done with a state of the art technology called "digital lithography" which gives the appearance of an offset print job from a machine that's basically a laser printer on steroids. The advantage of this kind of printing is that short run, full color work can be done at very economical prices.  He loved the book and asked me several questions about it. A week later, Phillip was back in my office to tell me that he wanted a book for his company.

I met Phillip's right hand man, a guy named Bill Buchanan. Bill is a big, strong looking guy with a great presence about him. We sat down and came up with a basic plan as to what PTS Newspapers wanted and I was told that the publishers of each paper would send me photos and text for "their" pages.

LOUISIANA- For a small river town, I found that Louisiana, Missouri to be a charming town (they do need a good hotel there, but that's another story...). Located about 60 miles south of Hannibal, Louisiana sits on the banks of the Mississippi River and has a downtown area that's showcased in Victorian style architecture. Since this is a main feature of the town, I thought that showcasing some of these buildings would be appropriate. I also went to the local livestock auction to see if I could find a nice community shot. I came across these two gentlemen passing a few moments together. The lighting was exceptional that day and to me, this shot shows the closeness that you could feel among the people in town.

PERRYVILLE-Perry County is located about 100 miles south of St. Louis. It's a nice town and was one of my favorites on the trip. The Publisher there, Randy Pribble, is also an exceedingly nice guy. Randy rode me around town and mentioned a church that was "really pretty", well, imagine my surprise when we walked into this cathedral in the middle of rural Missouri. We were granted permission from the church to shoot the interior and were even allowed to set up lights. The priest who escorted us asked lots of questions about my equipment and mentioned that they were looking for someone to shoot a new interior of the church. I set up and shot a roll for the PTS book and loaded a 2nd roll and gave it to the Priest- it's the least I could do after giving me run of the place.

It's really a tough spot to be in when you have to go into a clients office and tell him that the photographs from his newspapers were not up to the standards we thought the book should have. How do you do this and not lose your work? I decided that the only thing that I could do was be up front and honest about these images. I thought that if they were going to pay me to do this job that I needed to use my best judgement and that was to look for other sources for images.

I sat down with Bill and explained the situation as I saw it and recommended that we hire a photographer in each location to shoot the images for us.  I was immediately relieved when he not only agreed but thanked me for being honest with him. I have learned that dealing with Bill was a great experience and I have come to appreciate it.   During this conversation, there was a discussion about image consistency from one location to the next and because we would be using different photographers at each location would there be a visual consistency in the book? Since the images in the book would be large, they would have to have both an artistic and technical consistency and it was decided that one person should shoot the images. So, you guessed it- I shot them.

While traveling, I made it a point to stop into the paper and meet the staff. I was amazed at the quality of the facilities and equipment that PTS was using- very unusual for a small chain of newspapers to have good equipment. I was so impressed that I told Bill that if I ever was gong to get back into the newspaper business, I'd send them a resume.

In my travels, I went as far north as Linton, Indiana, where I walked almost a mile in knee deep snow with a full compliment of camera equipment to shoot a picture of a covered bridge and as far west as Denver (actually, the newspaper was located in Ulysses, Kansas- Denver was the closest airport that I could get a flight into- a five hour drive to Ulysses). I went as far south as Mexico, where the publisher of the Wesleco, Texas Town Crier took me to Mexico for lunch. The specialty of the day was Goat...I was a little leery at first, but decided that it tasted a lot like lamb and really wasn't that bad. I also saw a misty road in an early Kentucky sunrise while shooting in Paintsville, Kentucky. Other towns that I visited were Batesville, Mississippi; Bowling Green, Missouri; Center, Texas; Elsberry, Missouri; Hemphill, Texas; Lousiana, Missouri; Troy, Missouri; Perryville, Missouri; South Pittsburg, Tennessee and Thomaston, Georgia.

SOUTH PITTSBURG- Located just across the Tennessee-Alabama border, South Pittsburg is a funny little town. The bridge pictured is mammoth and spans across the Tennessee River. the locals call it "The Bridge To Nowhere" because it was built as a Pork project and the land across the river is basically undeveloped. One of the other oddities in town was the fireworks store. We got lost trying to find the hotel and stopped to ask for directions. The clerk of the store pointed to a glow in the distance and told me to simply follow the glow. Well, we did and at the end of the trail we not only found the hotel but one of the largest, most colorful neon signs I've ever seen. It was spectacular.

THOMASTON-Thomaston was one of the towns that I visited as a 2 day trip by itself. I happened to go on Martin Luther King day and used it as an opportunity to photograph the parade that the town had. One of the shots that I made was the inset image of the police officer waving to the passer-by. It's a typically southern photo and to me shows the charm of southern life. I was also taken with the courthouse in Thomaston and used it as the main image for the page. I was watching TV and saw a movie that used this courthouse. The cover shot for the booklet was also made in the pressroom of the Thomaston paper.

I've scanned some of the pages so that you can see both the layouts and the images that we used. As a technical sidebar, the images were scanned with a UMAX S-12 flatbed scanner, which I have at home and at the office. I like this scanner specifically for scanning from publications. UMAX has a "descreen" setting that allows scans to be made without the checkerboard (moiré pattern). Each page was scanned individually and then pasted together in Photoshop. To my knowledge, UMAX is the only scanner with this option.

I'd also like to thank the folks at PTS for allowing me to share these images with you. They're a classy group of people and if you're a newspaper photographer or are looking to break into the business, they're worth a look.

Have a great week.

Mark Lent