I spent all day traveling back from working a story on Florida’s gulf coast yesterday.  What was supposed to be a quick two leg journey turned into an all day trip that took me from Panama City Beach to Memphis to Nashville to Atlanta and finally back home to Austin.  There was a pretty big group of us that took this journey together when our flight was canceled out of Memphis.  Mostly the conversation was casual, sticking to subjects about work and travel.  It was until the plane finally landed in Austin and the subject of BBQ came up that the entire rear of the aircraft erupted into divided opinions about where the best brisket is or who makes the best dry rub or what wood works best for smoking.  Finally, a conversation with passion that united us all.

Just now I was thinking of that and I remembered this photo.  I shot this at Sam’s, a BBQ  joint on the east side of Austin, well over a year ago and for me it perfectly embodies the uniting aspects that food has in our culture.  I’ve never been totally happy with this shot even though I love it.  Something about the magenta color shifts in the photographs combined with a yellow wall and blue window light make it a color balancing nightmare.  For better or for worse this is the latest version.

Last Monday Alex Hannaford and I set out to Louisiana to cover the story on the wild life rescue and cleanup effort for the Sunday Telegraph in the UK… link to story here.  By Tuesday we were in Grand Isle, LA where most of the oiled birds have been showing up.  We spent most of the day baking in the sun and trying to gain access to a boat that could actually show us where the birds were being rescued and the effects of the oil on the islands off of the coast.  In fact most of the trip was spent just trying to get access, trying to get through red tape, and battling the bureaucracy in charge of wrangling the media.  Here is a great story written by Newsweek that examines the exact problem we ran into.  The following day we drove 4 hours east to Fort Jackson where the rescued birds are being cleaned.  After getting added to the list of legit media allowed in (last month) we were revoked at the gate and then re-added last minute after some convincing sweet talking from Alex.

The scene inside was pretty unbelievable, oiled birds in crates filling an entire warehouse.  Birds were scrubbed down in Dawn dish soap and penned outside to dry 45 min later.  This is where the bulk of the story took shape and where I got the most interesting pictures. The birds fate is yet undecided, the ones that survive will be shipped to the Atlantic Coast of Florida where they will hopefully be safe.  Cross your fingers and pray there isn’t a hurricane or tropical storm this year.

The final image is a poster that I’m working on taken from one of my shots and inspired by Tony Hayward’s now infamous quote… if you are interested in a few let me know and I’ll try to ship them out to you.