LouVelo and Shutter LLC Street Art in Louisville
Last weekend, the LouVelo team got together with Shutter LLC, a team of two photographers in the Louisville Area. Adam Mescan and Aaron Kingsbury combine their photography and editing skills to create intimate yet somehow atmospheric images of events and locations. They are well-known for portraits and landscapes, using new technology to capture events important to Louisville.
Chrome Pony playing at the Waterfront (c) Shutter LLC We couldn’t think of a better collaboration than Shutter to showcase Louisville’s colorful street art. There’s a number of beautiful murals throughout the city, and we wanted to combine them with our bright bikes to give a taste of what makes Louisville so unique.
Q: What equipment were you using here? Because I'm sure all the gearheads will want to know.
Adam: I shoot with a Nikon D750 and Fujifilm's X-T2.
Aaron: My setup is a Canon 5d mark iii with a 50mm f/1.2, 35mm f/1.4, and 17-40mm f/4.0 for those really wide shots.
Q: What's your favorite thing to photograph?
Adam: Portraits has been a growing favorite of mine. Trying to capture the personality of someone but also creating a narrative behind that image creates a challenge but it's a challenge that keeps you motivated.
Aaron: I love street photography. Traveling to a new city and getting lost in the people or even walking the streets at home. Each time you explore there is something new to see and each photo you capture is unique and real. There is no better way to capture people and life really happening.
This mural is around the corner from our Butchertown station at East Washington & Cable Street, and was painted by Aron Conaway and Tara Remington.
Q: Favorite Louisville Neighborhood?
Adam: I have moved to Crescent Hill around a year and a half ago, I just love walking around and photographing in the neighborhood so I'd have to say right now it's definitely my favorite. The businesses around are great to work with, I was working with a model in the coffee shop, VINT, on Frankfort Ave. and we stopped in there to meet up but the people working there that day were super cool with us taking some images inside respecting other people space and no including others in the images.
Aaron: Well I live in Germantown and love it here. I've always had friends or family living around Germantown and the highlands and it's unique charm is just something you can't get anywhere else in louisville.
Q: How do you think biking and photography are linked?
Adam: Hmm, that's a bit of a tough one. I'd have to say the two are linked because you're concentrating on multiple aspects of the camera and the same thing while you're biking knowing all of your components and how they work together and to give you the best result.
Aaron: I find myself biking when I am exploring home or a different cities. It's a great way to capture street photography and you don't have to worry about parking a car out of the way and best for congested areas or high traffic times of day. It also allows me to be more minimal with my gear which pushes me to try new ways of capturing an image.
Bryan Patrick Todd, who is responsible for a few of the best murals in Louisville, has this mammoth piece a stone’s throw from the Floyd & Broadway station.
Q: What is your favorite shot of this set and why?
Adam: My favorite shot of the set would have to be the image from the Broadway station where you have this interesting view down the center with bike on both sides and you almost float above them, seeing things in a new perspective always creates interest for me.
Aaron: Probably the Butchertown area photos in front of the colorful mural. It's just so vibrant and the bike is just as cool and bright.
Q: What makes Louisville so photogenic?
Adam: Louisville is a big small town so we have this cityscape to explore as well as rural areas surrounding and a mix in between, it creates a lot of backgrounds to work with. That and of course all the beautiful people, that always helps.
Aaron: Louisville is very diverse and a combination of different neighborhoods brought together to create an endless selection of photogenic areas. It's also full of history and unique (new and old/abandoned) places to capture some interesting images. It also has an amazing community of artist that thrive and create from one another.
To see more of Adam and Aaron’s work, visit http://www.adammescanphotography.com/, or like them on Facebook!