En Route to Houma

These images were taken outside of Houma, Louisiana during the Spring time earlier this year.

My roommate in New Orleans at the time and one third of this summer's bicycle ride, Rush the 21 year old college drop out Jagoe, and I were travelin' there daily for a Craig's List labor job. An hour and fifteen minute commute, we were leaving the still sleeping city at around 5:30 in the morning trying our best not to spill the Cafe Du Monde on our laps as we traversed the bumpiest streets ever formed. At times it seemed worth it though as we got to watch the sun rise ore the swamps and see the first ripples form on the inlets below.

Upon arrival in Houma we geared up in our full body Tyvec suits, strapped on our respirators and tool belts, and waddled into a new government housing unit each day for eight hours of sheet rock removal. We were trying to combat what was never addressed 3 and 1/2 years earlier, mold damage from hurricane flooding. The work was awful but the pay was good and the classic experience even better. Rush and I were working with people who had traveled from all over and some who had grown up just down the road, all of us looking for something that would keep us on "this" side of the unemployment line. The most classic example of migrant workers was a pair of young men in their mid twenties who had made the trek all the way from the region surrounding Detroit, MI. On the way down they had smoked about two packs of cheap cigarettes apiece that they kept in gallon sized ziploc bags after they rolled them from the bulk loose tobacco. They were pitching tents at the nearby campground, working by day and chasing armadillos by night. Neither of them was a particularly good worker but they were doing what they needed to get by.

The landscape that lined our drive solidified the range of ironies we encountered in our Houma experience, the opportunity and hope present in this troubled riddle. Rush and I were tired by the end of each day but made the commute back to New Orleans feeling lucky to have a place to call our own.

Tiger Truck Stop

Grosse Tete, LA

I am not sure if much needs to be said for this truck stop/gas station/restaurant outside of Baton Rouge other than that Louisiana State University is located in the capital city and that their mascot means a great deal to them. They have had live tigers in captivity at the gas station for the past 13 years- the prize white tiger is now preserved above the restaurant salad bar. Perhaps their pride in the Bayou Bengals has helped the college football team win the BCS title twice in five years...

A Lost Cause?

More from Rutherford Beach, Louisiana.

This landscape was surreal. It was Easter weekend of last year when a group of us went down to Elspeth's family vacation house about an hour drive east of Rutherford Beach. The area had been hit hard by storms of the recent past. There were layers of rebuilding attempts that were totally indecipherable. Ruined foundations amidst a network of communicative wires were finding harmony amongst the battered palms and shifting sandy terrain.

I know that home is a tough place to give up and the loss of one I have fortunately never experienced. It just seems as though there are some places that the earth wants to herself and Rutherford Beach appeared to be one of those places.

A Beached Barrel

Rutherford Beach, Louisiana

Catholic Country

Grand Coteau and New Orleans, Louisiana

Winter 08-09

Western North Carolina

Western North Carolina

Sparta, TN

Greensboro, AL

Akron, AL

The Time Has Come

A brief beginning with a long hiatus and I am now eager to begin posting pictures again. Since finishing the Core Fellowship at the Penland School of Crafts I seem to have become somewhat of a rambler. I have had the opportunity to travel a lot, working here and there, just enough it seems, to support the photographs I have been so excited to make. Most recently I took an 11 week bicycle ride across the country with two dear people. We are all in different places at the moment, attempting to assimilate back into the next step of who knows what and I am feeling quite nostalgic for all that I have been able to see this year.

I find myself, at the moment, back in Western North Carolina processing the 73 rolls of film that have been taken over the past three months and it is like christmas in the summer time. I am eager to share the images that I hope capture some of the spirit of our country. I thought however, that I needed to start by posting some photographs that led up to the summer's ride. These first few pictures mark the beginning of my exodus from Penland in February and the trek to Tennessee followed by a pilgrimage through Hale County Alabama en route to New Orleans.

In December of 2010 I will have a show of the photographs from this year's rambles at Rebus Works in Raleigh, NC. It will no doubt prove a challenge to edit the work so any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks and enjoy....