Story behind prize winning photo

Photos by Darrell Lovitt

What started out as a college photo project has now resulted in a photography award for a Williamsburg man.

Darrell Lovitt submitted a photo of his grandfather working in his shed to the annual Kentucky Living Magazine photo contest. Lovitt won first place in the contest’s ‘People’ category.

“I was doing a photo project for college, and I had actually stayed with my grandfather and my grandmother and kind of followed their lifestyle,” said Lovitt. “They are kind of old school. They didn’t have any technology besides a TV and maybe a couple channels. They lived on a farm, and he worked on the farm.”

His grandfather, Delbert Gibbs, of Corbin, was 89 when the photo was taken in 2007.

“This is in his shed, and one day he went up to his shed to sharpen a blade to put on a table saw to cut some wood,” said Lovitt. “I was taking photos of him sharpening the blade.”

Lovitt said that he spent just about every other weekend growing up at his mother’s parents farm playing, making trails, or just hanging out.

“I appreciate the lifestyle him and my grandmother had,”said Lovitt.

He said this isn’t the first photo that he has submitted to the Kentucky Living photo competition that he has won. Lovitt said several years ago he won in a sports photo category, which was not a category this year.

As for why he submitted the photo for the contest, Lovitt said, “My mom, she subscribes to the magazine and she recommended that I submit something. I thought, ‘Why not?’.”

When taking the photo, “I wanted to capture my grandfather in his environment and doing what he did, which was farming. I wanted to have something sentimental for my family,” Lovitt said.

Another reason he took the photo was, “I wanted to have this environmental portrait. His lifestyle, I guess, is a little out of date,” said Lovitt. “It kind of takes you back in time and I wanted to capture that because you know everyone has their own definition of progress.”

“I wanted to capture his humbleness, his hardworking nature,” said Lovitt.

Lovitt graduated from Eastern Kentucky University with a bachelors in fine arts. He said he worked for the university, the student newspaper – The Eastern Progress, and the Herald Leader.

Lovitt’s grandfather died on Christmas Day in 2013. He had seven children and 19 grandchildren.

The Kentucky Living Magazine contest received 2,460 photo entries in its five categories – aerial, animals, Kentucky travels, nature and people.

Winners received $100 for first, $50 for second and $25 for third place.