Photography is the freezing of time. It is the pausing of a moment. It is saying, “You, this thing, this event, I wish to hold you in my hands and keep you close and look to you once or a hundred times more.” Good, bad, beautiful, ugly, a moment can exist along the lines of forever with a swift click of a button.
This is why photography is a mighty weapon. In the right hands, a camera can create an image capable of changing the world. Especially in this day and age, when a single photograph can reach an audience of millions in a span of a few hours. A photo can bring normally obscured issues into homes or work spaces across the globe. It is all about capturing that perfect moment in time.
On our journey down south along the Mississippi River, from Chicago to New Orleans, I wanted to capture moments, places, people, and animals to illustrate certain issues that were not necessarily common knowledge. The following photographs are my attempts at this. At times, I strayed from my original plans, but that is part of being a photographer. You see what it is that is right in front of you, at that very moment, and do your best to represent it in a way it cannot do for itself. It is not about manipulating the environment to conform to one’s own vision—not for this kind of story-telling. I wanted honesty.
With these photos, I strive to showcase the Mississippi River and the South for what they are: dynamic, interesting, diverse subjects filled with beauty, life, disaster, and decay as well as a hundred thousand other things.
The Big Muddy
Here, two classmates race up the levee in Greenville, Mississippi, the site of the devastating flood of 1927.