A still from the video art piece ‘Latte Art’ by Richard Adkins.
The halls of Capitol Broadcasting’s Western Blvd headquarters became a veritable art gallery during a remodel several years ago and part of that collection included several locations for video art throughout the buildings. CBC featured the work of several North Carolina artists and now also features the video art of a few of our very talented employees.
CBC’s Video Art collection rotates around the buildings and during the past couple of months included the work of several different CBC employees.
Today we take a closer look at the video created from the photography of WRAL-TV News Photographer Richard Adkins, ‘Latte Art’:
CBC President & CEO Jim Goodmon requested that Adkins create this video piece after watching the baristas at Cup A Joes next door to CBC’s Western Blvd headquarters.
Adkins explained how he put together the piece for CBC:
In my assignments and travels, I spend a lot of time in coffee houses. Toward the end of the day I often find a few square feet I can call my own, bring out the laptop computer and begin writing and editing and later sending my work back to Raleigh. I’m usually wearing headsets, I’m focused on the computer screen, and the din of the room is simply white noise. While waiting on the digital stream from the laptop to make its way across airwaves and wires, I look around and see others alone on laptops, finishing up work or studying for school.
Coffee shops are lonely places, despite the image portrayed in TV’s Friends. I see less of a gathering spot and more a place of solitude.
Perhaps that’s where Latte Art steps in to brighten the darkness. A simple shape, a flower, a fern, a heart. A touch of beauty and lightness floating on the dark. A brief and quickly consumed bit of art from the server to the customer.
WRAL-TV News Photographer Richard Adkins
About Richard Adkins
Richard Adkins became a familiar face at WRAL-TV when he was only a teenager. As a member of Explorer Post 5, Adkins learned the news trade through the Boy Scouts Explorer program at the Big 5.
He joined the WRAL-TV team as an employees in 1983, working as a Production Crew member. Adkins left for a stint as a News Photographer at WCTI-TV in New Bern. He then worked at stations in Chattanooga and Oklahoma City before returning to WRAL in 1993 as a General Assignment Photographer in 1983.
Over the years Adkins has travelled far and wide covering stories for WRAL-TV and has become an award-winning news photographer. He received the regional Emmy Award for Outstanding Camera Work/News in 1998 and again in 2009, and received nominations in 2007 and 2011. He contributed to work that has won Peabody, DuPont and IRE awards, as well as Gabriel, AP and RTDNAC awards at WRAL-TV.
Adkins is dedicated to his craft as evidenced by his own words, “Television news is powerful. It can take viewers where they’ve never been before. It can show them what they’ve never seen before. It can be raw and truthful and cold and hurtful and honest and magical and many other things, but most of all, it can tell stories.”
