BLACKEY, Ky. (WYMT) – Malcolm J. Wilson, of Blackey, won the 2024 East Kentucky Leadership award for Media and Technology.

Wilson said he believes capturing photos is in his DNA. He added at age three he would trot around his hometown of Cumberland, Kentucky with an empty film camera.

However, he said something happened at 6-years-old that shifted his focus as he heard something he had never heard before.

“He no longer had his Appalachian accent,” Wilson said. “He was Pronouncing every syllable.”

He said his dad’s friend had moved away and one day stopped at their home for dinner. However, Wilson said the change in his father’s friend confused him and he vividly remembers running to his father after dinner to ask him what happened.

“He said son, Theodore is ashamed of where he came from. He doesn’t want people in Louisville to know that he is from these Appalachian Mountains. He said don’t you ever be ashamed of where you come from. Don’t you ever be ashamed of these Appalachian Mountains,” Wilson said. “It became the catalyst for everything that I did in my life. That was pouring the foundation to make Malcolm Wilson who Malcolm J. Wilson is.”

Malcolm said he has spent his life with the goal of telling the truth of the misunderstood Appalachian people.

“We all have to fight. We have to fight now only here inside Appalachia. We have to fight for jobs and for environment and clean water and now we have to fight the drug problem. But then we also have to fight the rest of the country for what they think we really are and we’re not,” he said.

Malcolm and his late wife Jennifer worked together on a project that gained a large audience around the world. It was called, “Humans of Central Appalachia.”

They told the stories of Appalachian people through pictures and video. However, when she passed Malcolm said he could not keep the project going without her and his focus shifted.

He began working with students in the region. He started teaching kids the art of photography in hopes that they would love to tell the same truth he has worked to tell throughout his life.

When the July 2022 floods hit Eastern Kentucky Malcolm and his interns picked up their cameras to capture the stories. They began creating a list of needs and Malcolm made the decision to share the list with followers of his former project. He said he was amazed at the help they received as a designated UPS stopped in their community each day for several weeks with items on the list.

His photos were continuing to capture the hearts of his community around the world and make a difference.

“My work is not for pundits, critics or scholars. My work is of the people, by the people, for the people,” Malcolm said. “Something to balance how they feel about where they came from. To prevent the Theodore’s of the world from feeling like they have to change their voice.”

As Malcolm continues to write the next chapter, he said he is hopeful that one of his students will continue to write the book.

“It’s good to work with these kids. But I am hoping that at least one of these kids takes some of me,” he said. “When I’m gone has that same love for these mountains and this culture and keeps trying to spread the truth.”

The East Kentucky Leadership Conference will be held Thursday and Friday, April 25th and 26th, in Corbin.

Click here to learn more.

Copyright 2024 WYMT. All rights reserved.

Megan Thee Stallion has been accused of harrassment by a former photographer, who alleged he was forced to watch her have sex with a woman.

According to NBC News, cameraman Emilio Garcia filed a lawsuit today (April 23) against the rapper (real name Megan Pete), accusing her of harrassment and creating a hostile work environment.

Garcia claimed that he was trapped inside a moving car with Pete and three other women, where she proceeded to have sex with one of the women. According to the photographer, the incident allegedly took place in June 2022 in Ibiza, Spain.

In the lawsuit, filed to the Los Angeles Superior Court, Garcia went on to allege that he was told by the rapper afterwards: “don’t ever discuss what you saw”.

“I felt uncomfortable. I was kind of frozen, and I was shocked. At kind of just be the overall audacity to do this right, right beside me,” Garcia told NBC News in an interview.

The lawsuit also states that Garcia was reportedly treated differently by Pete, with her harrassment “so severe” and “pervasive” that it created a “hostile, abusive work environment” that made Garcia’s “working conditions intolerable.”

On that same trip, Pete allegedly called Garcia a “fat bitch”, telling him to “spit your food out” and that he didn’t “need to be eating.” “To hear someone who advocates about loving your body tell me these things,” Garcia told NBC News, “I felt degraded.”

He went on to claim that he “endured a barrage of relentless sexual and fat-shaming comments plunging him into profound emotional distress,” allegedly causing Garcia to face physical injuries, physical sickness and emotional distress.

Garcia also reported a loss in earnings and decreased employment benefits, alleging that he was prohibited by the rapper from working for anyone else, along with being denied overtime pay and breaks. He was also allegedly left “without basic insurance coverage, depriving him of essential health care.”

The photographer claimed he now “grapples with mounting anxiety, depression, and physical distress stemming from the toxic work environment.”

In a statement to NBC News, Ron Zambrano, attorney for Garcia, said: “Megan just needs to pay our client what he’s due, own up to her behavior and quit this sort of sexual harassment and fat shaming conduct. Emilio should never have been put in a position of having to be in the vehicle with her while she had sex with another woman. ‘Inappropriate’ is putting it lightly. Exposing this behavior to employees is definitely illegal.”

Garcia is reportedly seeking more than six figures for unpaid wages (including overtime), interest on the unpaid wages, and other employee benefits at the legal rate. The photographer is also seeking penalties related to Californian labour laws, punitive damages according to proof, and any costs incurred by Garcia.

NME have reached out to Megan Thee Stallion’s representatives for comment.

In other news, Megan has said how “a lot of people didn’t treat me like I was human” after the Tory Lanez shooting.

ROTTERDAM — The music industry, with its seemingly endless subsections, sometimes focuses on the creative minds that craft and perform new music, but what about those on the other side of the stage? Photographers like Stephanie J. Bartik, of NY Rockstar Photgrapher LLC, sometimes fall into the lands of unsung heroes, telling the visual stories of bands that exist on a small-scale, all the way up to national touring acts. In just five years’ time, Bartik has surely cut out her niche in this industry, and is always working on getting her hands involved with new projects.

I had a chance to sit down with Bartik recently to discuss her craft. What follows is our conversation, edited lightly for content and clarity.

Lucas Garrett: Stephanie, thank you so much for sitting down. It’s great to talk with you. How’ve you been?

Stephanie Bartik: I’ve been busy, which is good.

LG: You certainly are. But you haven’t always been. What got you started in this vein of concert photographer?

SB: I wasn’t looking for it; it found me. I was brought up … my dad was a photographer, my uncle, my grandfather. I was surrounded by it but I never got into the technical part of it. I was always the one with the camera at school functions, family functions, et cetera. A friend of mine about 10 or 15 years ago asked me if I’d photograph her wedding. I said, “I’ve never done it before. Sure!” It was a low-key wedding — nothing huge.

Someone who was at the wedding was also a real estate agent. They asked me if I’d photograph their housings for the listings. From there, he asked if I’d do headshots for him. “I’ve never done that before. Sure!” I started to do a lot of different real estate agents for their headshots and listings. One of those people happened to be in a band, and asked if I’d come over and take pictures of the band.

I did it, and then was going at it locally. Someone I knew, Lovey Lee, was the marketing person at iHeartMedia. They had a photographer lined up to go to the Schaghticoke Music Festival in 2016. Something happened and she asked if I could do it. Once again, “I’ve never done it before. Sure!” It was the first time I was in a photo pit. I was watching the other photographers and trying to take off their cues. All of the sudden I get a tap on the shoulder from security — I was on the fifth song and had lost count. It was a three-day thing and hopping over from stage to stage. One day, Sixx:A.M. — Nikki Sixx — was playing. At one point, something hit — the right string or whatever — and it felt like this thing zapped me right through the heart. It could’ve been either a heart attack …

At that point, this was what I knew I wanted to do the rest of my life. I put in a five-year plan for myself on how I was going to be able to do this. It was basically all through networking: a band would post their photos and another band would see it. The really cool part is that I’m starting to see the people I’d idolized as a teen, and being able to photograph them. It’s been a wild ride.

LG: Does it ever stop not feeling surreal, or is every day surreal for you?

SB: I don’t know … whatever I do, I tend to throw my entire self into it. If I did jigsaw puzzles, I’d be doing every jigsaw puzzle ever. It’s become a way of life; I like the music scene. It’s a tight-knit community, and I like how they show support for one another. It’s like magic to me. Every time someone gets up on stage and is singing, or playing a guitar and taking this piece of wood with strings on it and making such beautiful noise, it’s like magic to me. That’s what I try to capture. I’m a dreamer and I support other dreamers. If I can do anything to help promote that person to reach their dream, that’s good on my side. It’s selfish, feel-good, if you know what I mean.

LG: Absolutely. Is there a type of event in particular you enjoy working at, or is it all good for you?

SB: Whatever is at the other side of the lens of what I’m photographing is my favorite thing. For the past five years, I’d photograph the Lake George Classical Music Festival. You have these world-renowned violinists, et cetera, and the next day I may be doing hip-hop, sitting on the floor of Putnam Place, formerly Putnam Den. I have a lot of genres. It’s all the same as long as the passion is there.

LG: For anyone reading this who sees your work and says, “Oh, I want to do concert photography,” do you have any advice for how to get started in this whole industry?

SB: Yeah. I’ll mentor people occasionally, but I’m not going over settings on the camera. I’m going with how to deal with the crowd, et cetera. If you’re getting in there, first thing is, don’t beat yourself up. Band photography is everything a normal photographer hates: dark lighting, if there’s any at all; movement; flashes of light; people knocking into you all the time. Don’t be too hard on yourself.

What you have to do is show up at the little clubs and take pictures. Most bands, especially if they’re starting out, need to have that promo. Get their pictures. What I did, the very first time I started to do this on a regular basis, was a rock-aoke event. A friend of mine was singing and asked if I could come over and photograph him. Offer the pictures to the band, the venue, the promoter if one is involved. And post them.

By me posting online — and I know I’m an over-poster — my idea is that I’m also promoting the bands. You get your name out there, and then you start earning more money because you’re taken more seriously.

LG: Did you ever think you’d be this busy five years ago?

SB: No. if you asked me if I’d been a band photographer, I’d have said no. Because I keep myself open to different things, that’s how I found myself down this path. [I never thought] I’d be published in Guitar World Magazine. That was in the September issue (2023). Marcus (Nand) had an interview. He asked to use two pictures I took of him. Caffè Lena hired me for their children’s music school. I have big photos on their wall by the stairs and in their information booklets.

Frog Alley bought some [of my work] for their display. It was cool to see two of my photos on billboards. Also, I was in the digital display [at Rivers Casino].

Of all the genres of photography that I’ve done, there’s absolutely nothing that makes me feel how I do when I’m taking pictures of the bands. I’m very busy every time I get the opportunity to do it. I’m proud to be able to do it, and it excites me. If you’re doing something you love, you just get passionate about it and you get that extra energy.

LG: Absolutely. Do you still do other types of photography, or is it all band photography?

SB: I did just do a wedding. I still do headshots, and weddings — lower key ones where I feel more comfortable and down to earth. I’ve done auto photography for people selling cars. Antique cars. I’m open as long as the person knows I’m going to do the best I can. I probably won’t be a wedding photographer as much as Dino Petrocelli who’s in a world of his own. I’m always open to different things.

LG: Is it weird to go from mindset to mindset in different venues or do you know what you’re getting into now?

SB: If I’m going to photograph a band I’ve never done before, it’s a lot more than people see. I’m not going out there, showing up with a camera, clicking and leaving. I’m going to YouTube and looking at their videos to see where people are standing on stage so I know what to look for. When I go to an event, I go to security and make sure they know who I am and what I’m doing there. Security’s your best friend; don’t mess with them. I go to the lighting person and ask if there’s anything I should know about that’s going to happen at the show. There’s a lot to it; you just have to know what you’re getting into.

People have noticed when I take a photo, I have both eyes open. I’m looking through the viewfinder with one eye, but the other eye I’m scanning the stage. All your senses are all moving. When I’m done with a show, it feels like I’ve run a marathon because every sense is involved.

LG: Are there any concert photographers that you really enjoy, or say, “Wow, I wish I thought to do it like that,” when you look at their work?

SB: There are so many other photographers and I look at their work and I’m in awe. Claude Christopher. Technically, the way he captures it is very, very good. I look around and see the other photographers and sometimes feel like, “What am I doing here?” That whole imposter syndrome.

LG: I think that syndrome is a big part of the arts community. It’s almost a prerequisite for being in that community.

SB: Yeah, I wish I could get rid of that. People will tell me my work is good, but in my head, I think it’s better than it was, but it’s not good enough. By not thinking you’re good enough, it pushes you to always be better. If I thought I’m the best — and you’ll never hear me say that — what’s to strive for? I’m 70 and I’m still trying to learn new programs. I look at what a photographer does to see how I’d put my spin on something similar.

LG: Is there anything else you’d like to elaborate on?

SB: I always tell people when I’m mentoring them, when you’re shooting [an event], yes, you’re representing yourself, but you’re also representing the band. You’re representing the venue. You have to remain professional. You’re not part of the party. You have to respect the people. You have to stand in someone’s way because that’s the only way to do it, but talk to them. Say something like, “I’m really sorry. I’m going to be here for two pictures and then move out of the way.” On the other side, if you see photographers’ gear [at a venue], don’t put your food on it. That’s my livelihood, and if that gets ruined because someone bumps into a table because they’re having a good time, I’m out of work. Be respectful. That’s my big thing.