New Orleans

How I love this city.

I've had good times, bad times, hard times, times I don't exactly recall and times I wish I didn't. But I love the city. More than any other it has true heart. I sometimes wish I could move here, and then I think it might lose its magic; its strange luster.

But the more time I spend here, the more I know it wouldn't.

Self-Portrait in Green

A photographer I used to work with made self-portraits incessantly.

He claimed they were the spirit of creativity. That it was his way to see inside himself. That they were the most sincere form of creation. He spoke about them all the time. Shot them all the time. But rarely showed them to anyone. He has since changed the last practice and has displayed huge numbers of intricate serial portraits.

On occasion I shoot one myself. I find some of the same release that some do, but don't shoot nearly the same number as others and not at the same level. Mine are usually just side thoughts. Random exposures on other assignments. A relief from my boredom.

Anyhow, here is one I shot recently while working on a department wide project called Green.

A Day In The Park

Typically baseball is not my strongest sport. First off, I don't particularly like the game. Also, to me it is hours and hours of sheer boredom followed by mere moments of action. You have to concentrate on what's going on all the time, even through the boring parts, because if you don't, the action is over before you realize it has started.

So as the season gets started this year I have vowed to myself to make better baseball images. For me it seems the key is to keep my brain active during the game, always seeking some image or another. Watching the dugout, changing shooting positions between innings and even playing around with remote-mounted cameras seem to help me keep my head in the game. My goal is to shoot better action, but also to capture some of the quieter moments of the sport. These are just a start, but hopefully the plan will work and shooting baseball will become more than just a day in the park.

The Evil Side of Spelling Bees

Everyone has to cover a spelling bee now and then.

It's a photojournalist's nightmare in a lot of ways. Dim light, not much action and overly smart kids as far as the eye can see. The kind of kids who can make you question your own intelligence as an adult. Kids that seem to be perfect. Polite and soft, but well-spoken students who certainly spend hours reading the dictionary instead of running about, tracking mud in the house and acting foolish. Shirts tucked in, hair neatly parted to the side. Khakis pressed into smart straight lines. Penny loafers.

When they misspell a word, they simply smile and walk off stage.

As I make my way back and forth across the dead silent LSUS theater filled with English teachers, I swear they are judging my handwriting. I start to feel like I don't belong, but then I look up and there on the stage is a kid with whom I can relate. Number 11. Faded jeans, shirt untucked, devilish smile.... tennis shoes.

Number 11 proceeded to do the unthinkable. He made a spelling bee fun. As the numbers dwindled he held his head in his hands, breathed heavy, oozed with anticipation and finally in the final round Number 17 gave up the goods.... the ole jublilation/dejection shot. A sports photographers dream. Who would have thought it.

And although Number 11 lost in the end, he gave me a new appreciation for the sport of extreme spelling.

Hockey is one of the more difficult sports to shoot. You have to have special access, sometimes special gear and always a fast eye. The sport itself screams by at a furious pace on any level and on the minor league and pro levels it's faster at ice level than you can imagine. One of the things that makes or breaks a hockey shooter is position.

There are lots of positions at different arenas. Some have holes cut in the glass or boards, others have elevated positions and some you can shoot straight down from the rafters. But at the CenturyTel Center we have a box at center ice for our main position. It's situated between the team benches and has no glass. Its great to shoot open ice hits and fights and occasionally provides a nice view of the goal. But you have to pay attention to what's going on in the game or you can get hurt pretty easily. I have had a few close calls with flying pucks, but here is a series of photos I made during tonight's game.

Color for color's sake

Just a little random color to offset the dark, dank industrial look of the page. Shot on assignment about an hour ago at a local tailor's shop.

Hip to be Square

Well occasionally it happens. I am no 6x6 junkie... but it seemed to work for a storm photo this weekend.

Workers at Calumet Lubricants struggle with a football field-sized tarp during a storm that battered the area on Saturday morning.

Here goes

So here it is... finally a photo-specific blog. No more digging through Myspace or Xanga.

This blog is an outlet. Not really for images that don't make the paper, because my paper, in print or on the web, publishes nearly everything I shoot.

The images may be outside what I would normally shoot. They may be something I wished had gotten better play. They may be something I want to do better next time. But above all they are images from my own world and of my own vision.

Basically, I have found I shoot more and more exactly what the paper needs, but it doesn't always satisfy the shooter. Hopefully this blog will provide some of what is missing.

Who Is Sitting On Your Couch?

New homeowner Geraldine Smith wipes tears from her eyes and clutches a Bible signed by every volunteer who worked to build her home during the Fuller Center for Housing blitz build in Shreveport's Allendale neighborhood. (Shane Bevel/The Times)

OK, so I've been a little busy the past few weeks and I haven't had time to write much. But I wanted to tell you a little but about one of the things I have been doing.

The Fuller Center for Housing started less than a year ago building low cost housing in Allendale (the most impoverished neighborhood in Shreveport). Less than a year from the beginning of the project the group will have built 20 brand new homes that are replacing uninhabitable shotgun houses from the 1920s and 1930s.

The center uses the same format as Habitat for Humanity (in fact, Millard Fuller founded Habitat) to build low cost housing and guarantee a zero interest loan for the homeowner, who has to also work 400 hours on their own home.

I won't take up enough space and time to tell you about all the cool experiences I had this week and last. All the great people I met both covering and volunteering for the blitz build were great and the homeowners were even better. Overall, the volunteers built TEN houses in 4.5 days!!

But I will tell you about Friday night when I got to listen to Millard speak to a crowd of volunteers from all over the country who had come to build houses here in Shreveport. I watched as a joint choir of a predominantly black and predominantly white church sang together on the same stage. I listened as homeowners and volunteers told stories about working side by side. But the one thing that impacted me the most was what Millard himself said:

So many people pray to God. They say "Lord! What has happened to these poor people; surely there is something to be done? Help them Lord." Then they get up off their knees and they go and sit on the couch and watch TV. When they ask where God is.... what he is doing… why he hasn't helped the people, I respond… God is right next to you… sitting on the couch… watching TV.

So, as I sit here dirty from a day of work at the site… I ask you… who is sitting on your couch? Is there something to be done? Is there something you can do to make the world around you a little better for yourself and others?

Probably so.

Take the initiative. Get your God off your couch and into your community. Shine him up and show him off a little bit through your actions. I promise its gonna make your day better. Not to mention what it will do for someone else's.

If you or someone you know have any interest in working on the housing...please let me know. There is a ton of work left to be done. Anyone can help.

Timeless

I like timeless things.

Objects, people, ideas, concepts, philosophy, motorcycles, cars... and love.

The list goes on, but you get the point. Timeless is a requirement for me. I am not into the newest fad. I am not into the trendy thing. I am not into reality TV and the awful music on the radio. Its all tolerable at best. But true beauty lies in the classics. The things that will always be with us. Its true... I have and occasionally still do listen to my fair share of pop music, or watch a movie purely for dumb entertainment. But for the most part give me the Delta blues singers and a copy of a Faulkner book and I couldn't be happier.

So give me some khaki shorts and a white t-shirt and let me be....