jake lyell photography

Not exactly an assignment, but still mostly a working week, I’ve recently been in Ireland. The occasion: my friends Ryan and Aoife gathered the closest of their friends and family from throughout the world for a week-long convergence in County Wicklow, just south of Dublin. At the end of the week the two bonded in holy matrimony on a hillside near the town of Blessington.
Though we’ve known each other for about 15 years, Ryan and I became good friends when he returned to Richmond a couple years ago after living in Chicago, Italy and Ireland, respectively. A talented web and graphic designer, we’ve collaborated on a few projects as well. He is the architect of this blog and my forthcoming website. Both of us well traveled, we share a love of other cultures and ways of life. Shown above on the windy moors, Ryan holds on for dear life.

Aoife, from Dublin, was studying abroad in Chicago when she and Ryan met. She then studied in Italy and Ryan went with her. Along the way, the pair (shown above) have made friends everywhere they’ve gone, many of whom came to the wedding in Ireland, where at least seven nationalities were represented.

This is the first year that I have begun to take my camera everywhere I go. Not just when I’m in a foreign country but to a party, or movie, or even the grocery store. In many ways, I think it’s changed the way I look at things. For one, I now feel that I’m always on assignment, that I’m always charged with the task of taking interesting photographs, whether or not someone has commissioned them.

As a photographer who seldom takes a photograph that doesn’t include a human being, I concentrated more on the people of Ireland and their environments than on it’s beautifully green landscapes. Here I was able to gain more confidence in approaching subjects to ask if they’ll allow me to photograph them, and seldom was I turned down. Carrying my camera with me at all times forced me to be so bold, lest I return to the hotel empty-handed. Above, a retired man outside his tenement building north of the River Liffey. Below, school kids take the bus from Dublin to Blessington. “Are you some sort of famous photographer?” the girl asks. “Not yet,” I jokingly reply.

To call me a devoted U2 fan would be an understatement. Though we stayed out in the countryside, I made several day trips into the band’s hometown of Dublin, keeping my eyes peeled the entire time for U2 landmarks and even once sipping a pint of Guiness in a bar owned and frequented by Bono and The Edge. U2’s Dublin was a Mecca of sorts to me. Never am I so berated for the love of a band than among my own circle of friends in the US, who constantly poke fun at Bono to annoy me. It was great to be amongst allies.

Though this is the first time I’ve visited, it is apparent that today’s Dublin is not the same city of the 80s and 90s. Although in some sectors it has not lost its working class and industrial flavor, Dublin is in many ways a posh and metropolitan European capital. It is clearly undergoing an identity crisis. Despite being Europe’s fastest growing economy and a top destination for immigrants from Eastern Europe, voters recently rejected the Lisbon Treaty, a European Union constitution-of-sorts that streamlined EU integration and further centralized power in Brussels.

Ireland is dotted with ancient and medieval sites. On a day trip I visited Glendalough along with Bill, Jeremy (fellow Richmonders) and Andreas of Germany. The site of an ancient Christian monastery, it was founded around 600AD and today contains ruins of churches, towers and countless headstones. Above, Bill strolls through the graveyard at Glendalough.

Never without a song when there’s a pint in your hand, the week was peppered with Johnny Cash, Guns N Roses and U2 singalongs. These groups seemed to elicit consternation on both sides of the Atlantic, but became the glue that bound our various cultures together.

At the end of the week, a dapper Ryan (above with the best man, Barry) wore less conventional attire for the wedding, even riding into the ceremony on his future father-in-law’s bicycle.

Above, Aoife walks to the altar with her father. She and Ryan were married in a stone enclosure on a country hillside, where friends and family encircled them. The guests then used bits of rope to tie an unbreakable knot around the enclosure, recalling Ryan’s years of training to be an Eagle Scout.

Every step of the wedding was planned by Ryan and Aoife, and it remained true to form for the couple. Shunning tradition and employing symbolism, Ryan even baked the wedding cake (although with some last minute help from his mother).

I’ve shot a fair amount of weddings in the past. I’ve approached them as any other cultural event that I document -as a story to be told. Lately, however, my schedule has been so packed with overseas assignments that booking a wedding has become logistically impossible (I’m writing this entry from an internet cafe in Ecuador).

Last August I had almost booked a last minute wedding. The bride had even sent in her deposit when I got a call to go to China. It was a difficult decision, but I ended up taking the overseas assignment. I now have to put my time and energy into doing what I have endeavored for years to do and what is now happening - photojournalism.

Ryan now lives in Europe. I hope that during my travels I’ll still be able to visit him and Aoife from time to time. The fact that so many of their loved ones traveled thousands of miles to be at the wedding in Ireland is a testament to the kind of steadfast and upstanding friends that they are.

Good times ahead.

Momentum can be a dangerous force. Just ask former Senator George Allen, whose political career as a darling of the Republican Party was brought down by the momentum of the Macaca incident in 2006. Were it not for such a slip (and the hoopla that followed), Barack Obama could well be riding his current wave of momentum to a race in November against Allen, who was a very early GOP front-runner for the nomination. While Virginia won’t be selecting a nominee from its native sons or daughters this time around, it will certainly play a more crucial role in the nomination process than in the past.

Obama swept Democratic primaries and caucuses held across the country Saturday and Sunday, and poles have suggested that he will continue to fair well on Tuesday’s primaries in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. That Obama momentum was felt by thousands of people inside and outside of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Siegel Center on Saturday night in Richmond, where the Democratic Party of Virginia hosted its annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. Below, a police officer works to keep Hillary and Obama fans from spilling into the street.

The raucous crowd inside, overwhelmingly in support of Obama, often became vocally impatient for their candidate to take the stage. Addressing the crowd early in the evening, Clinton had a bit of a disconnect with her audience when compared to Obama, who would speak over two hours later. Her supporters were out-shown and out-shouted by those of her rival.
In a broad attempt to combat perceptions of un-humanness, Hillary Clinton continued a recent trend of laughing and smiling incessantly on the campaign trail and at the podium. Noting primary and caucus victories on days subsequent to performing the stunt, political strategist and pundit Ross Catrow predicts that Hillary will have a tearful moment before the cameras on Monday, ahead of key primaries in the Mid-Atlantic.

The event was also a rock-star rally of sorts for local Virginia Democratic politics, which up until a few years ago, would usually have hosted its annual dinner at the back room of a Ruby Tuesday’s. A man named Mark Warner changed the Party’s prospects, however. Taking the governorship after Republican Jim Gilmore’s reckless term came to an end in 2001, Warner showed Virginia how to run a fiscally sound government while maintaining important social and education programs. Warner’s policies helped Virginia steer around many of the economic problems facing other states in post-911 America. Below, the Virginia Governors from left to right: current Governor Tim Kaine, Mayor of Richmond and former Governor L. Douglas Wilder, former governor Mark Warner.

“Remember when I was governor that year?” the Democratic heavyweights schmoozy it up backstage.
While Wilder and Kaine have both endorsed Obama, Mark Warner does not plan to endorse a candidate until the nomination is sealed up. Anticipating a seat in the Senate next January, Warner wants to ensure a smooth working relationship with whoever occupies the Oval Office. As the Democratic candidate for Senator, the popular Warner should win handily against the current GOP front-runner, the aforementioned Gilmore. With Jim Webb already in office, Virginia will have two Democratic Senators and a Democratic governor for the first time since the Norman conquest of 1066. Okay, so if it’s happened before, it was probably back in the 30’s.

The big question is… can Virginia bare to vote Democrat in the general election? Could it be turning into a blue state? If Clinton were the nominee in November, I dare say Virginia would tip McCain. However, Obama is a much easier shoe for Virginians to slip on. Obama’s record (or at least rhetoric) of reaching across the isle to get things done is a strategy that has proven effective for Virginia Democrats like Kaine and Warner. Below, Obama and Kaine wave to a sold-out crowd on Saturday evening.

Obama has proven he can gain support among independents and moderates. He is a once-in-a-lifetime candidate able to attract young and old with his compassion, wit and charisma. The Superdelegates who may decide this race for the nomination would be wise to keep that in mind. Meanwhile, as McCain tries to beef up his conservative credentials, he will likely alienate independents who supported him. That makes for an easier race in the general election for Obama. But with the delegate race in a dead heat, let us not look solely at Obama’s current momentum to sum up the outcome; look at the numbers. Hillary has long-sought the nomination, and to think she would give up before it got into overtime would be what Bill Clinton would describe as a “fairy tale.”

Words and Photos - Copyright 2008 Jake Lyell

Regardless of what type of photographer you are, you’re going to photograph at least one wedding during your career. I approach weddings mainly from a documentary point of view and greatly enjoy doing them. I try to capture the events as they unfold rather than spending most of the time posing people. The wedding I shot Saturday was that of Craig and Kathleen in Norfolk, VA. Kathleen, a fashion designer working in LA and her now husband Craig, an artist and designer, chose a vintage look for their wedding that made it so interesting to photograph. Kathleen designed her own dress. The guest book took the form of a vintage type-writer. To top it off, the couple was escorted in a 1962 black Cadillac for the day.


The wedding took place at the Women’s Club, a mansion in the Victorian neighborhood of Ghent in Norfolk. From the site, to the cake to the transportation, the style was thematically in sync.

Technical notes: TURN OFF THAT FLASH! About half of what I shoot are ambient exposures, pictures taken with available light. Flash can kill the mood of a photo like a cell phone ringing in church. Though you can’t always do it, I recommend shutting off the flash whenever possible.


All the best to Craig and Kathleen!