Only 3 days of school left before me and a bunch of people from the BCM at SIU will be heading down to New Orleans for the second year. We have an amazing time last year, which I wrote about here. Actually this next week will be the first year anniversary of my blog. The initial idea of creating a blog came to me inside a second hand bookstore in the French Quarter. I was walking around taking photos of my friend Chase, when he mentioned his blog and how I should start a photo blog to document my life. So I completely redesigned my website and created a text and photo blog. I am disappointed to say that I have not been able to keep up with the photo blog on a very regular basis. However, having a place to write and post photos online has been very enjoyable.

I’m excited to go back to New Orleans and see what progress has been made since the past year. I imagine that very little overall progress will be visible from a one week trip. The news stories about the extremely high level of crime and violence within the city has been disturbing. It seems as though the state and local government is still trying to fix problems of corruption and abandonment within the police department. I will hopefully be bringing a Hasselblad down for the trip so I can document the area. I am continually disappointed by the quality and overall aesthetic of digital imagery compared to medium and large format film.

I will be leaving New Orleans on Thursday evening to attend the national Soceity of Photographic Education conference in Miami. I can’t wait to see South Beach again, nice 80 degree weather is exactly what I need right now!