Scenes from a fire, Bayou Cane.

Sunset over the marshland in Southwest Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana.

The annual blessing of the fleet in Dulac, Louisiana. The event celebrates the tradition of those families who earn their living as shrimpers, and centers around prayers for a safe and bountiful brown shrimp season.

Read the article by Nikki Buskey.

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.

On a crawfish pond in Raceland, harvesting them before Good Friday.

Aboard the Deep Blue Responder, an Oil Spill Response Vessel docked at Port Fourchon.
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Aboard the Deep Blue Responder, an Oil Spill Response Vessel docked at Port Fourchon.

Fatigue is suspected to be the cause of a fatal wreck of an 18-wheeler that flipped over U.S. 90. Read more in the article by Eric Heisig. See the photo on MSNBC’s photo blog.
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Fatigue is suspected to be the cause of a fatal wreck of an 18-wheeler that flipped over U.S. 90.

Read more in the article by Eric Heisig. See the photo on MSNBC’s photo blog.

Louisiana governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal at the dedication of a new fleet of U.S. Coast Guard cutters at Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport. More in the article by Cara Bayles.
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Louisiana governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal at the dedication of a new fleet of U.S. Coast Guard cutters at Bollinger Shipyards in Lockport.

More in the article by Cara Bayles.

I spent some time with clients of the Terrebonne Arc center. Essentially, the Arc is a nationwide organization serving people with, “intellectual and developmental disabilities,” and their families. I put that in quotes because the definition of what they do has changed over the years, as cultural assumptions about mental disabilities has changed. Here’s a part of their website called “Our Name.” We, as an organization have been sensitive to the impact of terminology on our constituency and have adapted accordingly. As the words ‘retardation’ and ‘retarded’ became pejorative, derogatory and demeaning in usage, the organization changed its name to ‘The Arc.’  No matter what they called themselves, I found the things that they do in Terrebonne Parish to be really appreciated by the people that worked there. Essentially, they give people who would not be able to fit into a normal workplace environment jobs working at the organization’s bakery, thrift store, garden, and other enterprises, including a project that sorts beads recovered from previous Mardi Gras Parades. As someone who has come home from a parade with over 10 pounds of beads, I can see the usefulness of this project. They then repackage the beads, and resell them to Krewe’s for their next parade. For someone like Danny Martin, a Terrebonne Arc client from Houma, this kind of job gives him something to do that is both stationary and repetitive, as there are certain clients that prefer that to being outdoors. “I’m glad I get to do this, because this is a fun job and I like to work,” said Martin.
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I spent some time with clients of the Terrebonne Arc center. Essentially, the Arc is a nationwide organization serving people with, “intellectual and developmental disabilities,” and their families. I put that in quotes because the definition of what they do has changed over the years, as cultural assumptions about mental disabilities has changed. Here’s a part of their website called “Our Name.”

We, as an organization have been sensitive to the impact of terminology on our constituency and have adapted accordingly. As the words ‘retardation’ and ‘retarded’ became pejorative, derogatory and demeaning in usage, the organization changed its name to ‘The Arc.’ 

No matter what they called themselves, I found the things that they do in Terrebonne Parish to be really appreciated by the people that worked there. Essentially, they give people who would not be able to fit into a normal workplace environment jobs working at the organization’s bakery, thrift store, garden, and other enterprises, including a project that sorts beads recovered from previous Mardi Gras Parades.

As someone who has come home from a parade with over 10 pounds of beads, I can see the usefulness of this project. They then repackage the beads, and resell them to Krewe’s for their next parade.

For someone like Danny Martin, a Terrebonne Arc client from Houma, this kind of job gives him something to do that is both stationary and repetitive, as there are certain clients that prefer that to being outdoors. “I’m glad I get to do this, because this is a fun job and I like to work,” said Martin.

We stumbled along the beach in Grand Isle, finding chunks of tar washed up from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I called them “a Dick Cheney rock collection™.”
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We stumbled along the beach in Grand Isle, finding chunks of tar washed up from the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I called them “a Dick Cheney rock collection™.”