Audio Slideshow Cameron Parish, La January 24, 2006
For you editor type folks here is a preview of an audio slideshow of photos I took in Cameron Parish, La. It can be viewed at http://www.justinvela.com/media/vela_slides-web.mov
If you are interested in publishing it get in contact with me at justinvela@justinvela.com
For those of you interested in hearing more about Cameron Parish, La and the slow move towards reconstruction there, you can also e-mail me at justinvela@justinvela.com 
Model in Centralia January 23, 2006
Today I was in Centralia, WA photographing a model named Lei behind some stores downtown.
We only had an hour, her boyfriend was with her, as well as her dog, Achilles.
Her boyfriend, it must be said, was a very nice and apparently didn’t feel threatened by me photographing Lei. Which was good because he was big and played rugby and all I can say is that I most definitely am not and don’t.
Lei was a native of Hawaii, but had Cherokee, Irish, and a bit of other blood in her.
She had been in Washington state for only about a year, going to school to be a vet.
Modeling was something she did on the side for a little money and fun when she had time. She’d been modeling on and off since she was 14.
Given the short amount of time we had to shoot in, I blasted away, filling up three 1 gig cards by the time the hour was up.
An old lady watched us from her window, suprised to have people taking pictures in her backyard.
Shooting models is something that I’m new to and will probably not ever be what I am really driven to photograph, but its an interesting avenue to explore occascially.
Nazism Under the Space Needle January 22, 2006
The one Nazi that showed up at the rally under the Space Needle today seemed more confused and lonely than radical and dangerous.
He walked up alone holding an umbrella (something that automatically marks you an outsider in Seattle, a city that scoffs at rain). He also was wearing black leatherboots with red laces, an identifying mark of a skinhead.
He sat down and immediately a counterprotester organizer named Ben who was in his mid forties or early fifties came up and started asking who he was, what he was doing, where he was from.
“Leave me alone,” the Nazi said. He looked crinkly browed at the crowd and sniffled.
Ben kept asking him questions and pointed the Nazi out to his fellow counterprotesters.
They all looked at him angrily. The Nazi walked off and sat on the backrest of a bench. He watched the approximately 150 counterprotesters, who had arrived at the Space Needle an hour before the Nazi rally was scheduled to begin, chant various slogans which all basically amounted to: Nazi’s get out. You’re not welcomed in Seattle.
A group of counterprotesters surrounded the Nazi on the bench and started asking him questions.
He answered calmly, but in a small voice as if he was having trouble speaking loudly.
Where was he from?
LA.
Did he come to Seattle all the way from LA for this?
No. He lived in Seattle now.
Did he consider himself a Nazi?
No. He was a skinhead.
Why did he have a swatsika tattoo then?
He earned the tattoo.
He had a swatsika tattoo, but he wasn’t a Nazi?
No.
Did he have any kids?
Yes. He had a little girl who was five.
When she grew up would she be allowed to date black people?
Yes. She could date them. She just couldn’t fornicate with them.
Was he a racist?
No. He he didn’t hate black people. Just niggers. Niggers were people who pissed him off.
So was a racist?
No. He wasn’t. But the counterprotesters were. They were racist against skinheads.
Where did he learn about all this skinhead stuff?
From his brother. He had been hanging out with skinheads since kindergarten.
Where was his brother now?
Iraq.
This went on for awhile. A group of anarchists clad in black wearing bandanas and ski masks assembled in a group behind him. They talked quietly among themselves, seemingly planning the Nazi’s fate.
Finally one of the anarchists, a huge twenty-something year old kid with a railroad spike in his belt came up and said that he was a Jew and wanted to talk to the Nazi one on one for a little while. The Nazi got up and walked off with him.
They went around a corner and sat close together on a bench and spoke for about fifteen minutes. When they finished they exchanged phone numbers and shook hands. The Nazi walked off.
The big anarchist with the spike in his belt went over to the other anarchists and told them that the Nazi was just confused. He wasn’t even worth kicking the shit out of. Besides there were cops around.
The other anarchists didn’t seem to agree though. They took off running after the Nazi.
They ran for about a quarter of a mile through downtown Seattle before cornering the Nazi in front of a liquor store.
The anarchists surrounded him. He hunkered down and looked at the anarchists, sniffling.
The anarchists were telling him to get out of Seattle. To never come back. That he was a fucking Nazi piece of shit. Several of them proclaimed themselves Jews.
A cop car rolled by. It slowed down. The cop saw the anarchists surrounding the Nazi. It didn’t stop.
The Nazi began untying his red boot laces. He pulled the laces out of his boots and threw them behind him into a gutter. Then he stood up.
The group of about ten anarchists who had been circling him yelled for him to take off. One of them flung their foot out and kicked him in his butt as the Nazi ran off down the street.
The anarchists yelled a few taunts after him and then congratulated each other for “taking care” of him.
“More of them are coming up here,” they said. “We’ve got to keep them out.”
“Check it out,” one of the anarchists said. He held up the Nazi’s disgarded shoe laces.
“Let’s burn them,” another anarchist yelled. Lighters were produced. The shoe laces wouldn’t catch fire so they were thrown on the ground, stomped and spit on. Then the anarchists walked off, apparently satisfied Nazism had been dealt with in Seattle. At least for today.
Photos From Cameron Parish January 16, 2006
I’ve begun to post photos from Cameron Parish, Louisiana on my archive site:
Head over there to have a look. An audio slideshow is in the works and I will begin looking for a publisher within the week.
Goose…Dinner with Cajuns…Friday Night Alone in a FEMA Trailer January 7, 2006
Yesterday I performed what may be my most manly act ever. I cut out half of the breast of a goose that had been shot a few hours earlier. It was still warm to the touch. Luckily all the blood had congealed otherwise I don’t think I would have handled it quite as well. As it was it wasn’t too different from cutting up a turkey for thanksgiving dinner, except you had to pull aside feathers and the goose’s head rolled around a bit on the table in a somewhat accusing manner.
But I didn’t even have to cut the entire breast out, the man who shot them did most of the work and, as I was watching, it was my honorary priveledge to cut out the last one breast. After the meat was washed under the hose the man put the goose carcasses in a plastic bag and put them back in his car. We then went inside and I spent most of the evening eating the goose wrapped in bacon and talking to a 90 year old man who had worked 30 years as the clerk at the Cameron courthouse.
He had lost his house in the storm. It was completely gone. He hasn’t even started to look for it. Probably he doesn’t see much of a point in it. His insurance company is giving him the run around. They say that it was the flood water that took his house (he has wind insurance, but no flood). This makes no sense as his tractor is still on the land and hadn’t been washed away. Insurance companies are turning out to be the most evil entitities imaginable for the Cameron residents.
Anyway, me and this man sat on the couch and talked, not just of the hurricane, but about the area in general and how he had been a magnetic compass adjuster during WWII and how he loved hunting and fishing. He has a 16 foot fishing boat that was lifted up and set down 15 miles away by the hurricane, but its still seaworthy and he’ll probably be going out in it again soon.
After dinner Wayne dropped me back off at the FEMA trailer. We’d sat up a little watching Star Gate: Galatica. Wayne this big pastor with an enormous beard sat in his chair and explained to me about the cyborgs and the humans being mostly destroyed and needing to find a new homeland. He smiled and told me he liked the show because it took him off this planet.
When I was back at the trailer I thought about my time here for awhile. I was tired. A few days straight of seeing miles and miles of destruction is exhausting and so I layed in bed under the blankets with the little heater pointed at me and wondered what it would be like to have no other choice but to live in a trailer like this. It wasn’t bad overall really and I have no doubt that people would make do. If there is one thing that is true it is that human beings will make do. But a family would also be impossibly cramped in the trailer. Its velcro on curtains and plastic walls would begin to fall apart in the first month and the smell of people living cramped head to head together would concrete itself into the trailer within the first two weeks. These FEMA trailers are meant to be temporary living spaces provided free of charge by the Fedral Goverment for its citizens and they do fullfill their purpose. The problem is that with everything in the area so destroyed, insurance companies not paying, and no jobs these 20 by 8 trailers (approx) might become permanent homes for some people. And as I layed on the plastic mattress last night looking at the ceiling, that is something I could not even imagine.
In Cameron Parish January 6, 2006
Currently I am in Cameron Parish, Louisiana and four monthes after Hurricane Rita hit, the area is still destroyed. Just last night the town counsil which is called the police jury (even though they have nothing to do with the police) lifted the evacuation order for the lower part of the Parish where most of the destruction happened. Cameron is directly on the coast and the town proper where I was just a couple of hours ago, was hit directly by the eye of the storm.
Unanimously every person who lives in the Parish wishes that FEMA had never come and they hate the checkpoints that until last night checked everybodies ID’s before letting them back into the lower part of the parish. These checkpoints were manned by Blackwater contractors (the same people the US goverment uses in Iraq) and are one of the most insulting things to the people. Even though the storm is four monthes gone, its still insane here and if the police jury hadn’t lifted the evacuation order, somebody would have been shot.
On another note, I’m staying in the unused FEMA trailer of one of the more wealthy members of the community. His house is in fine condition and through some fluke FEMA gave him the trailer. The pastor of the Sweetlake Methodist Church, Wayne Taylor, who is my host, is putting it to use. The photographs I am taking don’t come close to giving an idea of the full nature of the destruction, but I hope to capture some of the mood of the people and this place.
Cameron Parish, Louisiana..The Failure of Newspapers…The Need for New Journalism… January 2, 2006
Tomorrow I leave for Cameron Parish, Louisiana. The area was 95% destroyed by Hurricane Rita last September and, from what I understand so far, has been unable to make a lot of progress in rebuilding. I’ll be staying in a church because all the hotels are full up with people who had their homes destroyed. I called almost every hotel in the area and every person I talked to sounded exhausted. They all said they knew of absolutely no rooms available in the area. FEMA has been paying for people to stay in the hotels, but according to a Lake Charles newspaper employee I spoke with, will be pulling the plug on that money in February. Since FEMA is also not letting people return to their properties for the most part, I don’t understand this.
I don’t have an assignment and am going on my own and will be looking for a publication for the images on my return. I’m also going to be gathering audio for the first time which I hope will make the photos more attractive to online publications. One newspaper editor I talked to briefly told me his readership wouldn’t be interested in the story as it doesn’t pertain to them directly. I believe that one of the only reasons people “aren’t” interested in things that don’t pertain to them directly is that newspapers don’t publish these stories in a very readable, interesting way. Newspapers seem to have lost their touch with the sensibilities of humanity.
New and better ways of bringing people information are necessary. Ways that allow interaction and control and that offer the immediatecy of a chat room or MySpace. Blogs and audio slideshows are part of it, but outlets as mainstream as newspapers have to upgrade themselves in terms of writing styles and arresting photographs in order to remain relevant, keep their readership and actually perform their purpose, which is to inform communities of important events and issues.
But Louisiana will be a good trip. I’ll be in Cajun country among alligators and nutria and who knows what’s going to happen.