Same old place
Same old city
What can I do?
I’m fallin’ in love

I’m just an old hound dog
Roaming around, oh lord
I’ve got all this, and heaven above

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I’m coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry
There ain’t no hurry cause I’m
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

I get a feelin’ in me
When I remember all those crazy days
and crazier nights
Can’t you hear the music playin?
You must have heard them saying
We’re gonna rip ‘em up
and light up the night

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I’ coming back to you one fine day
No need to worry worry
There ain’t no hurry cause I’m
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Same old place
Same old city
What can I do?
I’m falling in love

Oh, Atlanta
I hear you calling
I’m coming back to you
One fine day
No need to worry cause I’m
On my way back to Georgia
On my way back to Georgia

Oh, Atlanta
Hear me calling
I’m coming back to you one fine day, hey
No need to worry
There ain’t no hurry cause I’m
On my way back to Georgia

Now watch Alison Krauss sing “Oh Atlanta”

Myself and mine gymnastic ever,
To stand the cold or heat, to take good aim with a gun, to sail a
boat, to manage horses, to beget superb children,
To speak readily and clearly, to feel at home among common people,
And to hold our own in terrible positions on land and sea.

Not for an embroiderer,
(There will always be plenty of embroiderers, I welcome them also,)
But for the fibre of things and for inherent men and women.

Not to chisel ornaments,
But to chisel with free stroke the heads and limbs of plenteous
supreme Gods, that the States may realize them walking and talking.

Let me have my own way,
Let others promulge the laws, I will make no account of the laws,
Let others praise eminent men and hold up peace, I hold up agitation
and conflict,
I praise no eminent man, I rebuke to his face the one that was
thought most worthy.

(Who are you? and what are you secretly guilty of all your life?
Will you turn aside all your life? will you grub and chatter all
your life?
And who are you, blabbing by rote, years, pages, languages, reminiscences,
Unwitting to-day that you do not know how to speak properly a single word?)

Let others finish specimens, I never finish specimens,
I start them by exhaustless laws as Nature does, fresh and modern
continually.

I give nothing as duties,
What others give as duties I give as living impulses,
(Shall I give the heart’s action as a duty?)

Let others dispose of questions, I dispose of nothing, I arouse
unanswerable questions,
Who are they I see and touch, and what about them?
What about these likes of myself that draw me so close by tender
directions and indirections?

I call to the world to distrust the accounts of my friends, but
listen to my enemies, as I myself do,
I charge you forever reject those who would expound me, for I cannot
expound myself,
I charge that there be no theory or school founded out of me,
I charge you to leave all free, as I have left all free.

After me, vista!
O I see life is not short, but immeasurably long,
I henceforth tread the world chaste, temperate, an early riser, a
steady grower,
Every hour the semen of centuries, and still of centuries.

I must follow up these continual lessons of the air, water, earth,
I perceive I have no time to lose.

a tree in cameron

The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune.-Amelia Earhart

“Nothing is ever the same twice because everything is always gone forever, and yet each moment has infinite photographic possibilities.” – Michael Kenna

Hackberry, LA

The entire coast of Louisiana is coated in fear of the oil looming in the gulf. A disaster greater than the hurricane has occurred and all we can do is watch and wait. We believed that the companies drilling the oil and our government overseeing the drilling would keep us safe. We can see now that is just not the case. Billions of dollars in profit made and not enough spent on covering the worst case scenario. The worse case scenario we can see waiting to hit our shores, killing the fish, polluting the waters, destroying our culture.

Reality offers us such wealth that we must cut some of it out on the spot, simplify. The question is, do we always cut out what we should? While we’re working, we must be conscious of what we’re doing. Sometimes we have the feeling that we’ve taken a great photo, and yet we continue to unfold. We must avoid however, snapping away, shooting quickly and without thought, overloading ourselves with unnecessary images that clutter our memory and diminish the clarity of the whole. – Henri Cartier-Bresson

I have many reasons for shooting film. Slowing myself down is part of the big picture. (Pun intended) A roll of 120 has 12 shots available with bracketing the exposure 12 shots becomes 4. This lack of space forces me to roll the day’s story more tightly. This helps me in my day to day duties. Plus gives my off-hours shooting more of a challenge. I consider that fun. I shot both tri-x 35mm and slide 120 film on my day trip to Lafayette. It was a beautiful blue-sky day. The above slide was scanned backwards. I left it alone for the hell of it. I used Fuji Velvia 100F in my Rolleicord.

No one can fully understand the meaning of love unless he’s owned a dog. A dog can show you more honest affection with a flick of his tail than a man can gather through a lifetime of handshakes.–Gene Hill

i have two great friends, carolina and rosemary. They are always up for a walk with or without a camera. Dogs are truly the embodiment of unconditional love. Recently I wrote a story on overpopulation of pets and the euthanasia that results from it. (the tear-sheet is here) The experience wrecked me. Coming home, I hugged my girls straight away and thanked the heavens that they were both in my life.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. – Scott Adams

One of the advantages that film has over digital is the opportunity for serendipitous moments in development. I have been researching different developing solutions, tinting, film and the like since I have some specific looks in mind for one of my art projects. Mean while, I continue shooting my “test rolls.” Thursday, I finally had time to develop the film I had shot this month. On the last roll of the day, I knew I needed more solution to cover the 120 roll but I did nothing. As luck would have it, I should have added more developer for a “prefect” roll. The bubbles from the agitation hit just at the edge of the film and it created an interesting vignette on the side of the negative. I have to say I love it and it gives an interesting feel to these portraits. The film was Fuji’s Neopan 400 and I shot these with my Rolliecord,

A good snapshot stops a moment from running away. – Eudora Welty

Actually, these animals are steers waiting for the district livestock show outside of Burton Coliseum last month. Spring is the busiest time of the year in Southwest Louisiana. Livestock, Mardi Gras, Sports, and the start of the festival season. I have 3 rolls of film waiting to be developed and the pile is likely to grow before my spring break rolls in

This shot is on Ilford HP-5 at iso 400. I used my olympus om-1 since it is the film camera i keep on me 24/7/365.

Whether working or not, photographers are looking, seeing, and thinking about what they see, a habit that is both a pleasure and a problem, for we seldom capture in a single photograph the full expression of what we see and feel. -Sam Abell

Tony DiGiovanni is the owner of Mary Ann’s Dinner in Lake Charles, LA. He makes a mean cheeseburger! I shot this photo while having lunch with a friend. The Olympus is never too far away for moments like this.  Tony has a “grill” halo and I love that John Wayne is behind him. This photo really does tell the story.  Tony is a true character!