22-05-2025
Throwback Thursday — Celebrating 150 Years of the Messenger-Inquirer: Lake spent more than a decade as M-I photographer
Editor's Note: The Messenger-Inquirer is starting a new feature series called Throwback Thursday: Celebrating 150 years of the Messenger-Inquirer. The series will feature former newspaper employees, retired community leaders and anyone else who either helped produce the paper or made the news headlines on a frequent basis through the years.
Allen Lake spent more than a decade, spanning the mid-1980s and mid-1990s, as a photographer for the Messenger-Inquirer, shooting news, sports and even food illustrations for feature sections.
Lake's early love for photography came from his father who had a passion for taking nature and landscape photos.
'He was a biology teacher so he was very interested (in nature),' Lake said. 'We would travel to Canada and Florida; we were always on the go. …This was in the 1960s so the gulf of Florida wasn't developed at all. We would camp out on the beach. …It was always an opportunity to take pictures. So my dad started teaching me about photography when I was just a kid, and then I picked it up.'
It would be in the military where Lake would further his photography skills.
After high school, Lake said he joined the U.S. Air Force and became part of the air reconnaissance team that worked in mobile photo labs near the runways.
'This was obviously back in the era — pre-digital — so it was all film,' he said. 'We would get these massive pieces of film on rolls but the images were like 10 (foot) by 10 (foot) — the quality was off the charts. …It was just one more step in me learning photography.'
After leaving the military, Lake enrolled at Morehead State University where he would receive a master's of arts degree.
While there, Lake said he was part of the yearbook staff, taking photos throughout the semesters to help fill it.
'We would document for the yearbooks and they were massive projects,' he said. 'During that time, I started plugging into publication here and there to get my work published.'
That would eventually lead Lake into newspapers after college.
Lake's first newspaper job was around 1980-81 with the Kentucky New Era in Hopkinsville.
It's where he would hone his news photography skills.
'I had learned the technical part of it and I grew up in a dark room,' he said. 'I had learned how to what we call push film — that's getting into darker areas and still have images. But the key more than that was learning ideas and the ways to compose an image. …Your objective is to tell a story because so often, in the newspaper, you only have one image, especially if it's breaking news.'
And with Fort Campbell within the Kentucky New Era's coverage area, Lake said he spent a lot of time covering the military base.
'…I went to Alaska with them and a winter warfare training; it was 60-below zero — all that kind of stuff. It seemed I was always with them,' Lake said.
It was Lake's time with the New Era that prepared him for when he joined the Messenger-Inquirer staff around 1984.
Lake said a memory that stands out to him was his ability to take aerial photos for the Messenger-Inquirer in a time way before drone technology.
'I had access to an airplane anytime I wanted it,' Lake said. 'I didn't even have to check with the editor; all I had to do was go shooting down the road as fast as I could to the airport, grab a pilot and plane and I was gone,' he said.
During his time at the Messenger-Inquirer, Lake found himself covering U.S. presidents, capturing a joyful moment of future NBA player Rex Chapman and climbing to the top of the Blue Bridge for a perspective no one had seen before.
Lake's creative side also had him coming up with ideas for the newspaper's Food Page.
He recalled one photo shoot that involved a live snake eating a piece of fruit.
'The idea was to try to take photography to another level and yet tell a story,' Lake said. '…I remember going to a news photographers conference and their objective was the hardcore (news). And it's not that I didn't cover the hardcore … I did. But there's more than just the hardcore. For me to get into food photography, and to see how far you could take it and the different creating things you could do with it, was a blast.'
Lake would leave newspaper in the mid-1990s to start his photography business.
Lake, who is now 70, still maintains his photography business while also teaching college classes such as ceramics, photography and art history part time at local and regional colleges.
'It was such a neat and powerful experience,' said Lake about his time at the Messenger-Inquirer. '…Honestly, after about six or seven months later, I regretted leaving. …There were a lot of creative people there. It was a good group.'
