Rual Areas @ MindSay 
new orleans.. 4 months after the storm.
so over the weekend i went to new orleans.
it was pretty depressing.
just to see all the destruction. its shocking, and you dont get the full scale of it all until you go there.
everything in the flooded areas was destroyed.
im going to post a few pictures, because im just so.. blown away.. by the destruction, i couldnt talk to you about it.
and im sure you all know the story of how the leeves broke and such.
but ONLY MAN MADE CANALS caused problems. lake ponchatrain, the mississippi and the other bayous were perfectly fine.
we went on a guided tour of the flooded areas. i wanted to see it and hear the story of what happened to these people. the tour guide, isabelle, had so much love for the city that she feels she has to tell this story and the people of NOLA need to get their stories told. she started her own tour company and drives people around in a van to show them the areas. shes been getting a lot of shit for "victimizing the victims" but i think she's doing a wonderful thing. because of her, residents of the 9th Ward got commercial tours outlawed in that area. but she took some journalists from all over the world around in there for free to tell the world what happened. and the guy sitting next to me was an engineer and was surveying destroyed houses in the disaster zone and he knew so much about it. it was inredible.
there are incredible legal issues to deal with since peoples property got washed away and everyone is scattered. if your boat is on my roof do i have to wait for you to come before i can remove it?
if your house is in the middle of the street can FEMA move it or is it still your property?
i took at least 150 pictures but these are my favorites.
i thought that was pretty incredible.
the people in these communities were so tight knit and they got scattered everywhere.
the garbage means these people gutted their house and that means theyre coming back.
see look! house in street!
MR BUSH, WHERE ARE YOU SLEEPING TONIGHT?
yeah theres a shrimp boat on someones house...
a relief organization.
see those blue FEMA roofs? that means people have come back.
aww bubba gump shrimp! yayy!!
i like that picture from a photography stand point and i thought id share it with you.
thats probably my favorite picture of all of them. it shows so much hope and perserverence in the people of New Orleans. those people have suffered a lot, but they still have hope. some of them dont though, some of them are just like "this is to much for me to handle" they sell their house and they leave. but not everyones like that. there are so many people that want to see that city at its full glory again. it will take a lonnng time, but that city will return. it has before. it can again.
hahah on a lighter note, my favorite dress store in the french quater was open!!!
ahh i was sooo happy to see that! and of course, i helped the local economy and bought some cute dresses.
a little bit of uhh, retail therapy? hahahahahahah. im just kidding.
im trying really hard to be positive here. im sorry if that little joke offended anyone. really i am.
normallly i dont care if i offend people but this is different. so much destruction.
but the quater was so eerily quiet that night. well, it was quiet for the quarter. and there were more cops than people on burbon street! haha not really but still. you could get a table at cafe du monde with out having to wait.
it was crazy. but the beginets were still fabulous!
hmm wow. new orleans has a long way to go.
but i want that city to come back. i really really do. my dream is to go to Tulane and get a job in a little dress shop in the quarter. wooww that would be the life.
its on its way, these things just take time.
im sorry if me posting pictures of the destruction offended anyone. im not trying to exploit these people. i just think thier stories need to be told. how else are they going to get the help they need? even after its off the news these people still need help. i swear to god, ill go and rebuild every house myself if thats what it takes.
okay. im exaggerating. but i love that city and want it to come back okay??
im sorry if im offending anyone. BUT IF YOU THINK IM BEING DISRESPECTFUL I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT. *see below*
but im not sorry if your depressed. it is depressing, but there is hope.
UGH THAT REMINDS ME. i was talking to nick about this and he was like "since you've got family there you should show some fucking respect" and then i asked him how i wasnt and he doesnt respond and then signs off. hmm wtf? idk ill myspace message him or something. i could rant about how pissed off i was but i wont. more important things to talk about than him.
he said i'd be better off with someone else.
but i wasnt.
now hes all bitter and angsty,
and im all alone.
mmhmm yeah. im a poetic genious eh? oh well. ill talk to you guys later.
I LOVE YOU AND IM GLAD TO BE HOME.
it was pretty depressing.
just to see all the destruction. its shocking, and you dont get the full scale of it all until you go there.
everything in the flooded areas was destroyed.
and this is four months later.
im going to post a few pictures, because im just so.. blown away.. by the destruction, i couldnt talk to you about it.
and im sure you all know the story of how the leeves broke and such.
but ONLY MAN MADE CANALS caused problems. lake ponchatrain, the mississippi and the other bayous were perfectly fine.
we went on a guided tour of the flooded areas. i wanted to see it and hear the story of what happened to these people. the tour guide, isabelle, had so much love for the city that she feels she has to tell this story and the people of NOLA need to get their stories told. she started her own tour company and drives people around in a van to show them the areas. shes been getting a lot of shit for "victimizing the victims" but i think she's doing a wonderful thing. because of her, residents of the 9th Ward got commercial tours outlawed in that area. but she took some journalists from all over the world around in there for free to tell the world what happened. and the guy sitting next to me was an engineer and was surveying destroyed houses in the disaster zone and he knew so much about it. it was inredible.
there are incredible legal issues to deal with since peoples property got washed away and everyone is scattered. if your boat is on my roof do i have to wait for you to come before i can remove it?
if your house is in the middle of the street can FEMA move it or is it still your property?
i took at least 150 pictures but these are my favorites.
i thought that was pretty incredible.
the people in these communities were so tight knit and they got scattered everywhere.
the garbage means these people gutted their house and that means theyre coming back.
see look! house in street!
MR BUSH, WHERE ARE YOU SLEEPING TONIGHT?
yeah theres a shrimp boat on someones house...
a relief organization.
see those blue FEMA roofs? that means people have come back.
aww bubba gump shrimp! yayy!!
i like that picture from a photography stand point and i thought id share it with you.
thats probably my favorite picture of all of them. it shows so much hope and perserverence in the people of New Orleans. those people have suffered a lot, but they still have hope. some of them dont though, some of them are just like "this is to much for me to handle" they sell their house and they leave. but not everyones like that. there are so many people that want to see that city at its full glory again. it will take a lonnng time, but that city will return. it has before. it can again.
hahah on a lighter note, my favorite dress store in the french quater was open!!!
ahh i was sooo happy to see that! and of course, i helped the local economy and bought some cute dresses. a little bit of uhh, retail therapy? hahahahahahah. im just kidding.
im trying really hard to be positive here. im sorry if that little joke offended anyone. really i am.
normallly i dont care if i offend people but this is different. so much destruction.
but the quater was so eerily quiet that night. well, it was quiet for the quarter. and there were more cops than people on burbon street! haha not really but still. you could get a table at cafe du monde with out having to wait.
it was crazy. but the beginets were still fabulous!
hmm wow. new orleans has a long way to go.
but i want that city to come back. i really really do. my dream is to go to Tulane and get a job in a little dress shop in the quarter. wooww that would be the life.
its on its way, these things just take time.
im sorry if me posting pictures of the destruction offended anyone. im not trying to exploit these people. i just think thier stories need to be told. how else are they going to get the help they need? even after its off the news these people still need help. i swear to god, ill go and rebuild every house myself if thats what it takes.
okay. im exaggerating. but i love that city and want it to come back okay??
im sorry if im offending anyone. BUT IF YOU THINK IM BEING DISRESPECTFUL I DONT WANT TO HEAR IT. *see below*
but im not sorry if your depressed. it is depressing, but there is hope.
UGH THAT REMINDS ME. i was talking to nick about this and he was like "since you've got family there you should show some fucking respect" and then i asked him how i wasnt and he doesnt respond and then signs off. hmm wtf? idk ill myspace message him or something. i could rant about how pissed off i was but i wont. more important things to talk about than him.
he said i'd be better off with someone else.
but i wasnt.
now hes all bitter and angsty,
and im all alone.
mmhmm yeah. im a poetic genious eh? oh well. ill talk to you guys later.
I LOVE YOU AND IM GLAD TO BE HOME.
Project Polaroid
People ask me why I shoot with polaroids. Why I occasionaly abandon my "real" photography equipment and pick up an out dated Polaroid Spectra. Well here's how it started:
I've always been intrested with run-down abandond buildings and homes. Especially homes. It's sad to think of the stories that may have lead up to a family having to leave their home. Isn't it the American dream to own your own home and having a family pet? So what could happen to make it end. Or who would end it? I'd find photographs, sometimes entire family albumbs left behind. Glimpses of the memories made inside that house. It always got my brain going, to see these photographs of a home decorated for Christmas, and then look up and see collapsing ceilings, and holes in the walls, broken windows. But there wen't ever any answers on how it got that way. So I had to use the pictures to create a story on how it happend. Maybe it wasn't exactly how everything had gone down, but the relics of a family albumb was all my curriosity had.
Sometimes if the home was old enough the family albumb would be full of 600 series Polaroid shots, or even older larger format film from Polaroid Land cameras. There's something appealing about polaroid film, the colors are always off, aswell as the exposure and white balence. They're unpredictable, and unexpected every time. Sometimes the developer inside the packet wont make it to every corrner, and you wind up with blank spots, or weird markings, or uneven exposures. But every polaroid you take it's the only one, and impossible to ever recreate. No negatives, no nothing, that's it. One of a kind, every time. Every square that comes out of that camrea can be 2 mins old, or 30 years old if you want it to be. So if you think my random Polaroids are random. Think of the stories they might tell. Think of them less as a photograph, and more as someone elses memories. It's why I take them. I look at every shot as if it was a found photogtraph, and wonder where it was taken, and why? Why signifagance could this little framed photo have to anyone? So write your own stories about what they mean, so I invite you to think outside of that thin white border.
I've always been intrested with run-down abandond buildings and homes. Especially homes. It's sad to think of the stories that may have lead up to a family having to leave their home. Isn't it the American dream to own your own home and having a family pet? So what could happen to make it end. Or who would end it? I'd find photographs, sometimes entire family albumbs left behind. Glimpses of the memories made inside that house. It always got my brain going, to see these photographs of a home decorated for Christmas, and then look up and see collapsing ceilings, and holes in the walls, broken windows. But there wen't ever any answers on how it got that way. So I had to use the pictures to create a story on how it happend. Maybe it wasn't exactly how everything had gone down, but the relics of a family albumb was all my curriosity had.
Sometimes if the home was old enough the family albumb would be full of 600 series Polaroid shots, or even older larger format film from Polaroid Land cameras. There's something appealing about polaroid film, the colors are always off, aswell as the exposure and white balence. They're unpredictable, and unexpected every time. Sometimes the developer inside the packet wont make it to every corrner, and you wind up with blank spots, or weird markings, or uneven exposures. But every polaroid you take it's the only one, and impossible to ever recreate. No negatives, no nothing, that's it. One of a kind, every time. Every square that comes out of that camrea can be 2 mins old, or 30 years old if you want it to be. So if you think my random Polaroids are random. Think of the stories they might tell. Think of them less as a photograph, and more as someone elses memories. It's why I take them. I look at every shot as if it was a found photogtraph, and wonder where it was taken, and why? Why signifagance could this little framed photo have to anyone? So write your own stories about what they mean, so I invite you to think outside of that thin white border.
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