The 365 - 9/6/17 - Day 45

Happy Wednesday everyone - The central theme in Houston this week has been "rebuilding."  The lasting effects of our storm will be felt for months if not years, and as I write, another hurricane has devastated Puerto Rico, several Caribbean islands, and is poised to make a potential landing in Florida.  As Houston continues to rebuild from Harvey and as areas start that process in the wake of Irma, there will be a lot of thought and attention on trying to plan for the future.   Now, this week, there are several people in Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico that will have to juggle the uncertainty of those post-storm futures with a new, additional uncertainty.

Texas, Florida, and Puerto Rico host approximately 160,000 DACA recipients, some of whom have weathered the impacts of Hurricane Harvey and others who may potentially experience impacts from Hurricane Irma. In Houston, some DACA recipients got in boats and rescued neighbors, including one who lost his life.  Many others experienced the very loss that we all did. They were part of their communities and experienced everything that we all did.  In Florida and Puerto Rico, I can only imagine that others will likely have similar stories.

These recipients have woven themselves into their communities, and are connected to a larger central debate about immigration in this country. For most, if not all, DACA recipients did not choose themselves to be part of this debate,  as they came to the US with their parents at a young age and with little to no understanding of what that meant. Yet they face this uncertainty about their future nonetheless. 

This larger debate on immigration asks the key question, "What does it mean to be an American?"  There was never going to be an easy black and white answer to that question, as those kinds of answers have never done our nation justice.  Our nation has always been as complicated and nuanced as the individuals that make it up.  The answer will continue to change, morph, evolve, and grow as the nation does.  Our challenge is to come to grips with a modern day answer to that central question.  An answer that can eliminate the uncertainty that 800,000 people now face.  An answer that can account for neighbors helping neighbors.  An answer that reflects the kinds of communities that makes up our country and the kinds of people we celebrate.  It will not be an easy process, nor will the answer be universally accepted.  However, there are kids now facing an uncertainty they didn't ask for and a potential future they can't imagine.  They deserve that we face their reality.

Houston, Texas - American Youth

The 365 - 9/5/17 - Day 44

Happy Tuesday everyone -  I've tried very hard to not have politics take over this space.  You can imagine that with the current climate of activism and politics seemingly dominating all of our media spaces, it has been very difficult to not put my camera on those topics everyday.   I don't think I want to censor those kinds of things here on the blog, and I do believe that paying attention and understanding our civics is the greatest responsibility we have as citizens.  So I wanted to share some of the images this week from a shoot I did last January.  I see in a lot of places even today that the passion I saw that afternoon hasn't left our streets.  Truthfully, I hope it doesn't, but I do hope that we can start to find a way to speak to each other rather than at each other.   It should be noted here that this rally was peaceful and well managed by the police.  No one got hurt, but the message was heard loud and clear by several passers by.   Enjoy your Tuesday evening everyone - 

Houston, Texas - Voices

The 365 - 9/4/17 - Day 43

Happy Monday / Labor Day everyone - I hope everyone is doing well, and if you are State-side I hope had a relaxing day off today.  I was able to get out today and do a couple of photo walks this afternoon, and I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of those files.  For today's post, I wanted to share another from the HDR Collage series.  The image here is a composition of elements of my old neighborhood Red Hook.   I used one shot of rope, a symbol of the old dock community and past, and combined it with a shot of the old Red Hook Trolley.   Part of the fun in this series is working with the software to combine the images and elements creatively to generate something new.  In this case, I used the rope image to hold the cold shadows and the trolley image for the warm highlights.  The result is a very striking blue and red/yellow/orange contrast.  I hope you guys enjoy - 

HDR Collage - Blue Rope

The 365 - 9/3/17 - Day 42

Happy Sunday everyone - I'm taking a break from the Harvey coverage tonight (trying to wind it down actually), so I had to dig into the files to find something new for the blog space.   A few years ago, while taking a photo class, I was in Herman Park hunting for photos when I ran into this couple sitting on a park bench having a picnic.  I had thought about a couple of shots, but decided not to interrupt them.  To my total surprise fifteen minutes later, I had doubled back to find this scene here.  The picnic had turned into a proposal, complete with rose petals and a mariachi band.   I got a series of shots, including this image.   I rifled through my bag looking for my cards to try to slip to them without spoiling their moment, but by the time I had them in my hand they had somehow slipped away.  I look at this series and I regret not being able to get these to them.  Maybe Facebook can help out here. (Herman Park - January 2014).  Anyway, a bit of positive for the blog tonight as I gear up for a couple of photo walks tomorrow.  Enjoy your Monday / Labor Day - 

Houston, Texas - The Proposal

The 365 - 9/2/17 - Day 41

Happy Saturday everyone - I don't think anyone here is a stranger to the kinds of images coming from Houston this week.  People are talking about this storm and its impacts here.  I have struggled through my shooting this week to try to find ways to illustrate just how complete and total the losses are.  This was the personal goal I had set for myself.  I hear the statistics - the homes destroyed, the rainfall that fell, the number of people in shelters.   It's very difficult to find the words to adequately explain what it means to lose something that is irreplaceable.  I had spoken of a story this week from my time in Hurricane Sandy in which a neighbor of mine had lost everything in his apartment to floodwaters.  But the part that stuck out in the telling of the story, was not the TVs or the furniture, but rather the artwork that was the last connection he had to his wife that had passed away years before. They were totally destroyed and irreplaceable.  It's with that lens that I had challenged myself this week to try to find a way to photograph what I was seeing in the context of the true loss that people were experiencing.  This shot here is clearly about the furniture that has been flooded and is now on the yard waiting removal.  However, it is possible that for these people that put these chairs out that they meant so much more.  These could be the chairs that had their "spots" or the perfect armrest angle.  These could have been the chairs they held their grandchildren for the first time.  We have "things" and we say that they are replaceable, and this is, of course, very true in a literal sense.  But when exploring the attachments we have to these "things" and the sentimental values we place on them in addition to the purchasing costs, the reality of the loss starts to become more clear.  Photographing this is very difficult as is trying to picture this from afar.  My challenge for you here is to see this image in terms of the title.  This isn't furniture to the people who are now throwing it out - this could have been a life in chairs.

Houston, Texas - A Life in Chairs