Coal Train, rumbling through Richmond, Va, October 20, 2006.

If you live in the metropolitan Richmond area and if you've finally received your 2008 Verizon phonebooks and if you've bothered to peel off all those pesky stickers, underneath, you'll find, on the cover, this photo. Yep, on the cover of 1.1 million phonebooks. It really took me a while to believe I wasn't being messed with when I was contacted by Verizon last summer about using this image on the cover. I still didn't really believe it until I got mine.

Let me tell you, it looks nice enough on the cover (especially the whitepages--it looks a bit dark on the yellow pages), but it really looks incredible at 20x30...many, many thanks to my friend Brad Petersen for his help in post-production work on the image.

About the image

A few years ago, When the National Folk Festival was in Richmond, I was lucky enough to be included on the team of photographers the Richmond Times-Dispatch assembled to cover the 3-day event. One of the shots attempted was a wide-area view from the Lee Bridge. The photographer who took just wasn't satisfied with it, so it never saw the light of day.

However, I was inspired to want to take a peek at just what Richmond looked like from up on the bridge. Previously, I have shot the skyline from below the bridge, on the pedestrian walkway, and I have shot it from the other end of the bridge, but I had never shot it from the northern end of the bridge.

I got my opportunity the morning following the festival when it worked out for me to drive Nina in to work. Since I had a little time, I decided to scope out the skyline. What a psyche! This is one of my all-time favorite views of the city.