A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of spending some time with 82-year-old Mickey Stubblefield at his home in his hometown of Mayfield, Kentucky. Mickey is a former Navy veteran, Shriner Mason, Kentucky Colonel, and was also the first African-American baseball player ever to play in the Kitty Leagues. He receives an average of 10 letters of correspondence a week from fans and while he may possess fame, he is not rich. He has been everything to everyone, but his most important role is being a father (and a mother) to 2 young girls, ages 10 and 12. The real story of Mickey is his relationship with the 2 girls under his care. This is a story of love and compassion. Although I am actively pursuing the multimedia option, the story will likely end up a still photo story. I did however capture some good A-roll interview clips and since they may not make it into the piece itself, I have included an un-cut, raw clip of a portion of one of the interviews below. It is an emotion recollection from Mickey’s past.

**UPDATE**

I am proud to announce that the above clip of Mickey was used in a presentation at the Indianapolis Museum of Fine Art on Martin Luther King Day in 2009. The still images from the story of Mickey, entitled “The Good Loser” are viewable on my portfolio site at TODDSPOTH.COM.

Finally a post about my experiences at the The Mountain Workshops! Well last month from the 16th-23rd I was in Danville, Kentucky participating in the wonderful Mountain Workshops put on by Western Kentucky University. It was a lot different from my only other workshop experience thus far, SportsShooter Academy. We picked photo story ideas out of a hat on the first day and had the remaining days to shoot (600 frames max) a full story from beginning to end. My photo coach was Rick Loomis from the LA Times. I actually was hoping I would get to work with him since he actually interned at The Gazette several years ago and is now a Pulitzer-prize winning photographer and doing big things. We had writing coaches and had to complete a written story and captions as well as shoot the photos. I had a great time. There was an awesome faculty and staff and an incredible amount of resources available at our disposal. Danville was a wonderful place to be and we topped it off with a great party the Sunday night after we closed that didn’t end till about 7am Monday morning. I made lots of contacts and a few good friends out of it. I’ll admit my story wasn’t really a loaded situation and proved to be a bit difficult, but I did my best and learned a ton. On Friday, halfway through our stay in Danville, Loomis came up to me and said, “Hey, you’re gonna go up in a plane?” They arranged for someone to go up in an airplane and shoot some aerial shots of the area and I was who they chose. I was excited to say the least. I quickly went back to the hotel and put in my contacts and headed to the tiny airstrip in town. A young pilot introduced me to the tiny two-seater Cessna that we would be flying in, a prop job with high wings and no wiggle room. Paired with one of the windiest days of the year, it would prove to be quite a ride. Within about 5 minutes of shooting my right contact flew out of my eye and I was forced to shoot with my left eye. It was definitely an experience I’ll never forget. I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to conquer more of these workshops soon.

I haven’t posted a blog in some time, and much to my surprise I’ve gotten quite a few inquiries to my condition as well as requests to post more. Ive been in Kentucky for the last week so I’ve been a bit disconnected with the rest of the world. Several more blog posts will accompany this one to get things back up to speed. My last two days of my Kentucky trip I visited the wonderful city of Louisville. An intense bout of thunderstorms limited my exploration, but I did manage a bit of in-car sight seeing through not only Louisville, but parts of Indiana as well. My main mission for the two days before I boarded a flight back to the mile high city was to visit the Louisville Slugger Factory. Before I even came to Colorado, one of the first things on my to-do list was visit the Slugger Factory when I came down to Kentucky. It was originally slated as a personal trip, but now that the Rockies are entering their first World Series, it has become a story for The Gazette. I happened to visit while the factory was producing the official game bats for the Red Sox and the Rockies, so that was an added bonus. The photos are a lot of tight, detail shots of the making of the World Series bats, from their origins as large dowels of hard wood to their branding. I had the pleasure of being toured about by tour guide and overall expert, Larry “Pee-Wee” Joyce. Not only was I given access to anything I needed, I got the chance to play in their private batting cages with some of the famous bats. It was amazing, and as the Rockies are just moments away from Game 1, the fact that I most likely wont be attending an actual World Series game is an afterthought. I would recommend a trip here to anyone visiting the Louisville area. I produced a multimedia piece that I entitled The Journey of a World Series Bat.