Keeping Time in the Deep South

52 week photography project, January 2025

Lighting in the Marriott Shoals Hotel, Muscle Shoals AL. All photos by the author.

I spent New Year in the Deep South, in the middle of a road and rail trip through Tennessee, Alabama and Louisiana — parts of the US I’d never visited before. The trip was inspired by the documentary about the music studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a small town with a big sound.

I admit I spent a lot of time wondering what this month’s prompts would be, taking loads of photos ‘just in case’. Fortunately, I ended up with a match for every January prompt.

1-Keeping Time

FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals, AL.

This is taken during a tour in one of the still-working FAME studios (Florence Alabama Music Enterprise). My first photos were dull — just instruments melting into sludgy brown and green walls, so while everyone else was wandering around, I focused on detail. I got onto my knees and zoomed into this microphone in front of the scratchy old drum. Most of the studio instruments are vintage, like this one.

I like the flashes of green light reflecting here and there. Best of all is how the studio name is visible on the mic.

2-A Hazy Shade of Winter…