About

Well, lets see…about me… What can I say?

I’m a 27 year old guy, originally from Hammond, LA, which is about 45 miles north of New Orleans. I have an M.B.A in Marketing from Southeastern Louisiana University. I now live in Jefferson City and work a day job with the Missouri State Highway Patrol. No, I’m not a trooper…they wouldn’t give me a gun :( I work for the Training Academy as a Video Production Specialist. I make training videos, copy video tapes, film recruit training exercises, and occasionally hang out of one of the Patrol helicopters doing aerial video.In my spare time, I like to relax at home, run long distances, and play on the computer.

So you might ask, “How did you get into all of this kind of stuff”. When I was in High School, I had the opportunity to try video editing in a computer science class I was taking. My brother and I made a football highlight film for the football team and my teacher, Devin Broome, was working part time at Southeastern, showed it to his boss. Later that year while I was attending orientation, I stopped to say hello to Devin and was approched by Claude Levet, his supervisor. He told me he’d have a job for me in the fall if I wanted it.

The office I was to work in was the Office of Public Information, and Claude was the University Photographer. My former teacher was working as the part-time video editor for the University. So I got a job being the student help. I learned a ton about broadcast video, edited programs for the university television station, shot video for promotional videos, and tons of other event production related things. It was great, and I wouldn’t have the job I have now without that experience.

So, I graduated in Spring 2004 and couldn’t find a job doing the video work that I loved. Public Information had a graduate assistant job open, and it was mine for the taking, so I stayed there another year and a half and got my masters degree in Business Administration (Marketing emphasis). I graduated from that program, and had to settle for a job at Cingular Wireless doing retail sales. It sucked… It wasn’t what I wanted to do with my fancy degree… I’ll never do it again.

While I was doing my graduate school stuff, my wife (now ex-wife…) asked if Claude could talk to her class about Civil War photography. I had known Claude had done a bunch of photos of Civil War reenactors in the late 80s and early 90s, but I never asked any questions. I saw the photos on his walls, thought they were cool, but I never asked how they were made. So, Claude agreed to give a talk to one of my wife’s 7th grade history classes, and I filmed it so she could show the tape to her other classes. During his presentation, I got really interested in the process he used to make the images. I asked Claude if he would teach me how to do it, and without hesitation he agreed.

Claude was going to teach a workshop on Wet-Plate photography in August 2005 at Historic Eastfield Village, in East Nassau, NY. He invited me to come along and be his assistant, and I’d get to learn the process. It was a great trip, and I caught the wet-plate bug. As we were driving home, Hurricane Katrina was nearing the coast of Louisiana. This totally set back my plans, as shipping (UPS, Fedex, DHL, USPS) into Louisiana was not working relaibly after the storm. I couldn’t get any of the pieces I needed to finish putting together my wet-plate equipment. Finally in December of 2005, I got everything together and set out to photograph the areas hardest hit by the storm.

Now, back to my Cingular job and how I got where I’m am now:

So at this point, I have an M.B.A, 5 1/2 years of broadcast video experience, a working knowlege of the 19th century Wet-Plate Collodion process, and I sell Cellular phones at Cingular Wireless. This wasn’t acceptable. So we moved!

My wife had family in Jefferson City, MO, so we packed it up and moved in with my mother-in-law for 3 months. I tried going to different Civil War reenactments around Missouri and taking wet-plate photos of the participants, but that quickly got old. My wife had signed on to teach 7th grade Social Studies in Versailles, MO, so we found a house in the middle of nowhere (2 miles outside of Versailles) that was pretty nice and moved into it in September of 2006. I got a job with the Patrol a month later.

I’m once again trying to do more Photography work. I never thought I would enjoy anything more than the video stuff that I already love, but photography is quickly gaining more and more of my attention. It would be great to make some money off of it, too (hint hint). Recently I have been trying to get into doing photos of models in the state of Missouri. My work is evolving, which is good to see. Its nice to be able to move on from the process, and not have to concentrate on how the images are being made, just what they are being made of. I moved back to Jefferson City in September of 2008 and have been actively shooting new images every chance I get.

So anyway, thats my story in a nutshell. Enjoy the site, and check back regularly to see what I’m up to!

Andy Richmond