I drove down Bayou Lafourche for a tryout of sorts. Simply put, I spent a day photographing whatever caught my eye, and meeting people along the way. I’d say this is a more direct and cornier style than I’m accustomed to, but I like being direct and corny.
Also, I’m using Instagram? I’m trying to avoid using the photo filters, but I have a suspicion that the purposely contrasty and poor color balance of the iPhone camera necessitates a certain amount of fiddling.
It’s Christmas eve, and holidays mean time with family. This leads to a lot of questions about what I’ve been doing in Louisiana since moving to Houma 4 and a half months ago. Sometimes I answer intelligently.
I have to take myself back to the day I got a completely different view of the wetlands of Terrebonne parish, thanks to an educational grant from the Louisiana University Marine Consortium, or LUMCON.
We were flying to observe coastal erosion: where marshland, which was once between the populated inland regions and the salty gulf waters, has slowly receded. Every year, a land area greater than the size of Manhattan disappears into the water. Read more. Read even more.
This is the result of a variety of factors, both manmade and natural. Certainly, man’s role has accelerated the process, and man is central to fixing the problem.
The fallen trees are a sign of saltwater intrusion, what happens when the salinity of the water increases after land sinks into the ground.
What this means for coastal Louisiana is yet to be fully understood, as an ecological disaster of this proportion is unprecedented. With increased salinity in the inland waters, the biodiversity that has created such rich fisheries for the people of Louisiana will ebb away, and the thousands who live down the bayou will be forced to relocate as their homes sink into the water.
This is the kind of problem that is almost mind boggling in scale, but because it happens slowly, with centimeters lost gradually over time, it is hard to feel an immediate effect. Even though the water line is observable where cows once grazed, their lacks the certainty that emirates from other equally dire environmental problems like species extinction, rainforest destruction or oil spills.
My perspective on environmental issues is that there are no other problems more important. Why bother reporting on the sports games, the parties, the activities of the rich and famous when the ground beneath your feet, the “good earth” that gives life to everything in Louisiana is literally disappearing. Merry Christmas.
Frankie Ostello of Attenhofer’s Stained Glass, inspects the detailing on the face of Jesus before disassembling his scaffolding. The new stained glass window at Grace Lutheran Church replaces the one that was destroyed over three years ago in 2008’s Hurricane Gustav.
Mural painting in the Fruitvale district, corner of 34th St. and Foothill Blvd. in Oakland, California. The work is being done by a collaboration of community members in response to the recent Oakland Police Department’s gang injunctions, as a way to express a collective voice for the neighborhood.
Says organizer Leslie Lopez, “We need to bridge a gap between older and younger generations in this community, and what better way to do that than through our art? The spray can meets the paint brush.”
Alan Leon, muralist, poses in front of his mandala-esque representation of the Temescal neighborhood and creek, in Oakland, CA. Located near the children’s hospital, Leon’s series of murals will bring a lot of color underneath the previously neglected Grove Shaftner Freeway.
