Rising Rock Editor and Chief Delaney Holman helped host and moderate Photo Night 2026. Photo by Angela Foster.
Photo Night returned to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Wednesday, March 4, bringing together past and present campus communicators to celebrate the event’s 10th anniversary.
The 2026 edition highlighted students’ work from the UTC Department of Communication photojournalism courses and the online publication and capstone course Rising Rock, which documents the greater Chattanooga area. Additionally, the night featured four discussions and presentations from industry professionals.
Among those professionals at the event were local freelance photographer Kathleen Greeson and Associated Press photographer Brynn Anderson. Greeson discussed her work, which focuses on addiction, loss and faith. Anderson focused on her work in politics and sports, showing photos she captured at the 2025 World Series.
Two of the presenters, UTC alums Blake Davis and Christopher Shaw, shared their post-graduation journeys and reminisced about their time with the Department of Communication.
Both Davis and Shaw were students of Photo Night’s organizer, Associate Lecturer Billy Weeks, who helped moderate the event.
At the end of Photo Night, students participate in a “photo swap” where they exchange their favorite pictures.
Shaw recalled thinking, “Why doesn’t this guy like my pictures,” in reference to Weeks’ Photojournalism I course. The 2017 graduate is now the founder of Final Flash Productions and used his time to discuss what it takes to succeed as a photographer.
“When you jump into it, you have these people that you follow and inspire you—in the beginning—you just want to recreate what they did,” Shaw said, responding to an audience question about his work. “But you don’t want to become another version of them. I had to figure out how I would do that thing. What would my voice sound like? How would my eyes interpret it? And being OK if only I like the photo.”
When Davis joined the second-ever Rising Rock class, he was exploring his passion for videography. Six years after graduating from UTC, he founded Bloom—his own video production company.
For his presentation, Davis created a video explaining his journey from a student to where he is now.
“My biggest piece of advice for Rising Rock students, and some of the videos that I’ve seen have been really good, is don’t let those be the only videos you make this semester,” he said. “Use the cameras that you’ve got to go figure out your own style, other videos you want and make it really hard for people not to know that you do video.”
Between presentations, videos from Rising Rock students were shown, including a story titled “Carrying the Tune,” which examined the local barbershop quartet Choo Choo Chorus.
After the video presentation, members of the chorus in attendance sang for the packed Roland Hayes Concert Hall.
Rising Rock Editor and Chief Delaney Holman, a senior majoring in communication with a minor in political science, wrote the story and helped organize the event.
“You can have a rough idea of what it’s going to look like, but to actually be given a microphone and told to go on stage—and then you mess up the introduction—it’s surreal,” Holman said. “But it went as well as it could have gone. We had an amazing lineup of presenters and amazing student work. I’m just so grateful to be a part of this and to have done something like this.”
Another student video shown was from the story “Saving the Laurel Dace.” The laurel dace is an endangered minnow, and former Rising Rock Editor and Chief Addison Middleton spoke with experts from the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute about conservation efforts.
Middleton is a senior majoring in communication with a minor in marketing. The Hendersonville, Tennessee, native said she loves coming to Photo Night and learning from former students who sat in the seats she did.
“It gives a lot of perspective and a lot of guidance into what the next steps are after college,” Middleton said. “Showing that having these big dreams of being a photographer, a videographer or a writer is actually possible after college.”
Weeks said it’s “always exciting” and “humbling” to see his former students and how they’ve grown in their careers.
To conclude the night, Weeks announced the development of the Southern Photography and Film Collective, designed to preserve images, display work and educate the next generation of photographers.
“Photo Night is a part of that,” Weeks explained to the audience. “We’re looking to do things like working in some underdeveloped areas of our city and teaching the next generation of photojournalists how to tell stories with cameras. We couldn’t be more excited about this.”
Holman said it’s inspiring to be a part of the legacy of Photo Night and Rising Rock.
“I was in Photojournalism I and (Weeks) asked if anyone was interested in joining Rising Rock,” she said. “I went up to him and said, ‘I hope to be good enough. I want to be good enough to be in it.’ He said, ‘You are good enough.’ He put me in the class and I was in it for one semester. Then, last semester, he told the class that I was editor-in-chief.
“Being a part of the 10th year is so surreal and it’s surreal every single time that I walk into the class because Billy’s invested in me, my classmates have been invested in me and I love being here. I love being with creative, like-minded individuals that keep me coming back every single day.”
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UTC Department of Communication
Photo gallery by Angela Foster
