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This is absolutely crazy. I have the privilege of being the official photographer for the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. I shoot the annual Medallion Ceremony each year as the new inductees are given their awards. I also shoot the performances during the show at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. It is a crazy whirlwind several days  but this picture sums it up in one shot.

Last year, I was able to bring a great friend, Geoff Hammond, to shoot the event with me. The arrangements didn’t work out this year as the MHOF had other ideas. So this year I recruited another good friend, Ryan Alexander to be my assistant. The idea was that Ryan would come along to help with crowd control, lugging equipment, helping set up and break down, etc. But I got an idea in the process. I have an extra camera as a back-up. I thought to myself, what if I just teach Ryan some basics and give him my extra camera to shoot pictures throughout the night. I was hoping that he would be able to catch some shots that I couldn’t get because I couldn’t be two places at once. Ryan happens to be a very quick learner. Although not all of his images were pro-quality, he really surprised me. In fact, he knocked it out of the park on several of the images he shot. He wound up getting a lot more images than I thought he would. I was amazed that I was able to give him some extreme crash-course lessons and turn him loose.

This photo is one he shot of me during a media frenzy… I’m the tall bald guy in the front of the crowd, upper right corner. I love this shot. It totally captures the chaos of the medallion ceremony media frenzy in a way that I experience each year, but cannot see from this perspective. It’s very cool as a photographer to see it from a totally different angle. Thanks for capturing this moment for me, Ryan, and thanks for the other great shots you were able to get during the event. Your ability to learn so quickly amazes me!