For the Thanksgiving holiday...

...my wife and I went back to her home of New Orleans. Her generation had been planning a Thanksgiving family reunion in two months leading up to the holiday. It was to be a surprise for their 92 year old matriarch who has been blessed to see five generations come after her. The even was a beautiful one. It took place on the family property in the small town of Liberty, MS just over the border that separates Louisiana and Mississippi. There was plenty of people, food, and love for everyone. My wife finally filled her lifelong ambition to be a part of the women who coordinate the function. Is was a great event and kept us on a joyous high when we returned to New Orleans that night.

On the next day, my wife and I take in some sights in hopes of me catching a few good pictures and her meeting up with a few old friends. We decide to take in the local delicacy called the shrimp Po Boy (if you've never eaten one in New Orleans, you've never eaten a real Po Boy). While sitting in the restaurant waiting on our food, I see the man pictured walk up to the pay phone by the door and check the change return. This is the move of someone whose not only down on their luck, but exhausts all possibilities of gathering for themselves short of crime. I see him start to ask people for change as they enter and leave the restaurant. I ask my wife to ready a couple of dollars so we can hand to him as we leave.

I am always conflicted when helping those in need. On one hand, I have to get the vibe that the person needing the help is sincere in his asking. I have to feel like he is a person truly in need of help as opposed to trying to fund some vice. I don't know if my intuition is ever right, but I trust that I am being led to the right choice whenever I decide to help or not (and it is usually more of the former than the latter). On the other hand, I am always conflicted about if I have helped enough. My philosophy learnings have led me to be a big practitioner of qualitative utilitarianism. This is not just a belief that every action should be an attempt to help the most number of people at one time, but also the act should have a genuine impact on the well being of others (teaching to fish rather than giving a fish, in other words). I always feel like I could've done more and it takes me a while to come to the conclusion that I did all that I could at that moment and I could've done no more.

This gentleman asked me on the way out if I had any change, just like he asked the others. I pulled two dollars from my pocket and handed it to him (Islam teaches that everyone should practice regular charity). He gave a very sincere thank you. I don't know why, but after that I asked if I could take his picture and he obliged. He then asked if I could help him a little more so he could get something to eat. I guess we both connected in a way that to me he seemed like a man who was in genuine need of help and to him I seemed like someone willing to sincerely help in any way I could. My wife had asked earlier if we should give our remaining food to him and I declined only because I never want to assume things like that. After he asked for help to get something to eat, I returned to the car to grab the two sandwiches that my wife and I hadn't even touched and gave them to him. I hope it helped that man live a little easier even if it was just for a day. One day, I hope to be in a position to where I can help many people qualitatively. I never asked this man's name. We simply left our interaction with the impressions that someone will always need a little help every now and then and there are people who really want to help.

This is cause for...

...a celebration! Blog post number 50! A milestone! Hopefully the first of many to come. Well, it's a big thing to me. I'm really digging the fact that photography did not become a flash-in-the-pan interest for me. I've picked up and put down many things in my few years, but this feels like it has staying power. The only other thing I am this passionate about is writing, and I do both on this blog.

I actually wrestled with what to post for my big 5-0. I thought it should be something epic or at least something that shows some great progress of my short photography endeavor. I decided to not decide and just post something, anything, and not care as long as it had some artistic merit and meaning. I took this picture today at an art show. My wife and I strolled through the gallery looking at the different displays. There were two photography displays. Kimberly insisted that my photos were good enough to display and sell at these kinds of venues. I'm still pondering that one.

Anyway, this is my 50th post photo. I dig it. One, I've always wanted to do a shot like this with the shadow silhouette. I got the opportunity today at the art show. I really like the subject's position. The looking off into the distance, what could be the symbolic future. Getting a glimpse of things to come just before stepping off to meet it. This picture was perfect for post number 50. Here's to 50 upon 50 upon 50 more. Growth, progress, expression. Art is beautiful, forever.

I learned the game of chess...

... when I was about eight years old. An older cousin sat me down, showed me how the pieces moved, and what it meant to checkmate a king. I love it instantly. It appealed to my cerebral side. I liked the concept of having to think ahead, way ahead. When you make a chess a move, it should've been a move you intended to make three moves ago, and you should already have your next three moves planned. You also had to hold numerous strategies in your head at the same time. If something didn't go according to plan, you had to have a new plan to switch to. In all of my childhood/teenage hyperactivity, chess was one of the few things that could keep me in place for an extended period of time.

I wish more people approached life like they approached games like chess. For day to day living, a lot of us have conceded that the sequence of events that transpire are beyond our control. That anything that we plan will be rendered powerless by someone or something more powerful, yet when we sit down to something like a game we have a million different ideas going through our heads about our anticipated outcome. We do everything we can to bring that outcome to fruition. If it goes our way, we celebrate our will and cunning. If it does not go our way, we know that the next time will be different. Some do not realize that these little destinies we carve out for ourselves are attainable on a grander scale. It's hard to realize because one would have to shake years of mental defeatist conditioning to realize it. If nothing else remember that we shape our destinies. Any person or situation we find ourselves in contact with we put ourselves in contact with. Keep that in mind and know that you have to power to bring yourself through any way that you want.

On yesterday...

...I went to take pictures of my wife working at her pottery studio, well not hers, but she does take classes there. She's been at it for about two years but doesn't have any pictures of her in the process. Helping me build on my new found photography passion, she asked me to take some shots. It's a trip that my wife and I are both artists. By trade I'm an English teacher and she's a journalist, but we both have a passion for artistic expression. The thing that I dug the most, aside from watching her work, was the whole layout of the studio. There were so many things that screamed "artist" outside of the obvious pottery collection. The studio was a very colorful place full of creative energy. A bunch of things caught my eye. These are a few of those things.

This post is a response...

...to my partner in photography crime, the keeper of the Photography and Avery blog. She recently posted some picture of some North Carolina mountains which reminded me that I have a few mountain shots myself. These were taken this past April in Gatlinburg, TN. If you're a bit throwed off by the snow, let me give you the rundown of that week. We arrived on a Sunday, it was a mild 70 degree day. My wife was concerned because we like to do a lot of outdoor activities in Gatlinburg and the weather called for snow that week. We didn't get too concerned, though, because we learned from our previous trip that the weather forecasts in the region are often unreliable because the weather phenomena may take place at the higher elevations but not the lower ones. Well, they were right this time.

That night, the temperature dropped very rapidly. The next day it was much cooler. We decided to layer up and go hiking anyway. Now, it was cool and rainy at the bottom of our first mountain trial. The higher we went up, the rain turned to sleet, then there was a light flurry, and at the top it was outright snowing. This wasn't a flake here or there; this was a good two inches of snow. And it went on for two days. The hilarity of it all came to a head when on that Wednesday, the snow was gone and temperature went back up to 70 degrees. That day we went white water rafting and mini-golfing. Good times.

Long story short...

...I was racially profiled while shooting these pictures around the very neighborhood that I live in. While walking home, I was stopped by some cops who told me they received a call from someone saying that a person was taking pictures of buildings. Now, the street I was walking on is a busy thoroughfare lined with tress and there are no buildings on that particular stretch. I told them that I was not taking pictures of buildings and even showed them the shots I was taking. They apologized for stopping me and were on their way.

I was not upset at the cops. They were very cordial and mild-mannered. I'm not even upset now. But I am a bit disturbed at the person who made the call. Considering the location, the surroundings, and the timing of the police response, whomever called had to have done so from their passing car. What kind of paranoid, ignorant state were they in to think this was cause for alarm? I know that Islam has not been portrayed in the best light over the past decade thanks to the Bush administration, the ongoing Middle Eastern wars, and the media terrorist hype, but I never thought it shook the general public that bad and reduced them to this. And I know the cops were very cool but how would've they have responded to even a minimal display of annoyance? Would this even ever have happened if I decided to not wear my kufi? Just a sampling of the ignorance that I am consciously and constantly aware of every day. And people wonder why I'm the angry Black man.

I like to call this one...

...sunrise through a teacher's window. If this picture looks familiar it is because this is the same window and trees that I snapped for my fall colors post. This window is on the opposite wall where my teacher's desk it. I've looked up many mornings at this sight always vowing to bring my camera to capture it only to forget. Well, I didn't today. This shot may not be that great, but the image itself is a great reminder each morning of Who/What is in control and all other things pale in significance.