Location/Tourism Marketing Photography
Case Study: Bardstown, Kentucky
Even though its iconic city hall tower is a perfect analog for Cinderella’s castle, I wanted to showcase Bardstown beyond "Whiskey Disneyworld."
How do you effectively tell the story of a place?
This was the question I faced when Visit Bardstown approached me in early 2023 to create their 2024 Visitor's Guide – not just a magazine, but a softcover coffee table piece.
Bardstown, epicenter of bourbon production in the US, has evolved from whiskey nerd pilgrimage site to mainstream tourism destination. While it would've been easy to fall back on standard tourism-friendly marketing shots – toasting glasses and smiling faces behind bottles – I expressed to the tourism commission that I wanted to go deeper than just the basics.
Bardstown is my second home. With friends old and friends new in that city, I’ve logged a lot of time and miles in Kentucky since 2018, from exploring backroads in my best friend’s barely-alive '85 Ranger to making questionable decisions at Third Street Tap House on more than one occasion.
Personal connections aside, Kentucky at large is a smorgasbord of rich imagery. The rich landscape evokes southern England with green hills bordered by stone walls and wooden fences. And while bourbon tourism delivers big numbers in Bardstown and beyond, bourbon culture remains deeply personal to the people who grew up in the industry, and true southern hospitality is their default response to strangers.
Every interior is an empty husk and every bottle of whiskey is barely more than a paperweight without the human stories that surround them.
I advocated showing the city through its people and the natural spirit they have that built up this area in the first place. I wanted to showcase a story that other people would want to be a part of, because people always make the place. Every interior is an empty husk and every bottle of whiskey is barely more than a paperweight without the human stories that surround them. The tourism board agreed.
Creatively, my philosophy for the aesthetic was simple: every Kentucky shot should “feel like shrugging into your favorite leather jacket." We didn’t want the shots to be overly-polished, we wanted people to feel the area. Live edges. Natural textures. Capturing organic moments and smiles as much as possible.
If art is emotion and intention having really amazing sex, the result of that artistic moment should make people feel something. You can make something as clinically, textbook-ly beautiful as you like, but personality comes from imperfection. It’s a balance, and sometimes a hard one to walk, but this was one project where all parties knew and agreed that the live edges were important.
We had a couple of moments when our schedule went to hell due to weather and traffic between Louisville and Bardstown, but overall the two weeks we spent shooting could not have gone more smoothly, and once on-site production had finished, the process reverted back to my standard procedures for client proofing and editing.
Editing on the project was complete in November of 2023, and the book was released in Q1 of 2024 to a universally positive reception. It remains one of my favorite projects to date, and as we go into 2025, I am exceedingly pleased that my work was part of so many peoples’ first experience of an area I dearly love.
