Louisville native Ted Wathen left his day job in his 20s, grabbed his cameras and spent the next three years photographing all 120 counties in Kentucky with fellow photographers Bill Burke and Bob Hower. The three men had a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, some donated film and a budget of $20 a day for food, gas and lodging.

“They gave us cameras and film, and that's what we did," Wathen said. “We lived pretty much out of our cars, and we camped. We cooked our own food a lot. I never stayed in a hotel.”

Their adventure began in 1975, and since then, Hower, Wathen and Burke have spent the last 50 years of their lives “Documenting Kentucky.” The trio recently unveiled their photography project at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville.

The exhibit “Documenting Kentucky:

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