About
This website is slowly and painfully being re-born. A few years ago it was a pretty great photo blog that I managed to lose and lose the backup to. It took years to build and was becoming pretty popular. I don’t know if I have the time or energy to rebuild it now, though I would love nothing more. As long as it isn’t resurrected, that is good. That means I am out experiencing life and not pissing away my time on a computer. Most of the photos were backed up on Tumblr. If you would like to see them, please visit by clicking on the Tumblr image in the left sidebar or enjoy what’s left of it’s original incarnation on Blogspot.
In short, when my parents divorced in 1981 or so, my mother, sister & I moved from Lake County, Ohio to Louisiana to be near my uncle in Shreveport, who was stationed at Barksdale AFB. I spent years fishing in Toledo Bend, Cross Lake and exploring the wilds of the Sportsman’s Paradise.
It was the early 80s recession- a horrible time actually. If you didn’t work at the Air Force Base in Bossier you probably didn’t have a job, but the fishing, hunting and trapping was great! We couldn’t afford meat unless we went out and procured it from the trees or mud. The first thing my new Stepdad did was take me into the woods and show me how to eat mushrooms without dying. We shot squirrels and trapped beaver and night-fished for catfish (except the first attempt, when I mutilated my fingertips on the top of the Coleman mantle-lantern). We eventually moved back to Ohio, but my time there has changed me forever.
Once I was grown and out of school, at the first state of flux (problems at University & work), my girlfriend and I had an excuse to head South and say “to Hell with God-forsaken slush and snowy Cleveland”. I had been to New Orleans for Mardi Gras, as one of my high school friends went to Tulane. I needed to go there (he advised against) and my girlfriend trusted me, so with the energy only early-20’s youth can provide, we “up and moved” to New Orleans on a cloud of Harry Connick, Jr. music (stolen from BMG) and flavored vapors from recipes in Justin Wilson cookbooks.
After the 90s ended, we headed back north yet again but come back to New Orleans any time we can. Once married and soon after Katrina, we bought a small cottage uptown and if we ever figure out how to make money in New Orleans, we’ll be back again. For now, we rent it out & wait. Hiring?
This website was created to be used by me to keep in touch while I’m away. I use the links to keep up with local current events and the pictures I post are meant to serve as ambassadorship for my friends who have not been here before. I never meant to teach or compete with local NOLA bloggers, but darned if this site didn’t become popular in New Orleans- with people who already know and love the place. That is one of the most beautiful things about New Orleans. It’s not the self-aggrandizing and ceaseless yet futile vow to rebuild that gets crammed down my throat here in the long-dead rust belt. It’s unconditional love whether things get better or not.
A note on the “photography”:
I have taken formal photography classes from high school, to a rather qualified community college and even at CWRU- a research university with no business offering photography. I have been critically evaluated at these levels and proven myself more or less competent again and again.
You ain’t gonna see evidence of that here. Photography is one of those “keeping up with technology” things. I have many friends with rather expensive “hobby” cameras and even more friends trying to put food onto their tables with photography and have decided that I just have too many expensive hobbies (such as keeping a house in New Orleans) to even attempt to keep up with these Joneses. Though I have just about all of the equipment and space to do it, I don’t even have the desire to set up a film darkroom and perpetuate a vintage or “lost” art. I use cheap, digital pocket cameras and “smart” phones and scans of my SLR prints from the 90s. The photos I give you here are merely “records”, not art. And the cruel Louisiana sun is never where you want it to be. I’m never in town long enough to be calculating azimuths and vectors, Victor. I gotta take the picture when I’m there. I have also found that sometimes the subject of the blog post was not the original subject of interest when taking the picture.
My goal here is for you to want to see it in real life. The art I see in photography is in setting up the shot. If I feel I’ve nailed the composition, I’ll let you know in the photo description, be assured. But in a lot of occasions, I’m just passing by on my bicycle. I have made it my goal to give you great pictures under these circumstances with this equipment.
A lot of people can give you lovely photos with an $8,000 camera plus 16 hours in expensive post-production software. Can they do it with a $110 camera while riding a bike no-handed, eating smoked sausage from Rouse’s at the same time? I’ve done it for you again & again, y’all.
