Katrina stories....

The secret to shooting
for more than three hours?
........Change the scenery.
Shooting more than one setting, breaks the shoots into mini shoots.

I can shoot longer and I can pose better when things around me change.

My photographer had a Katrina story today...

... Everyone down here has a Katrina story. Everyone down here remembers where they were, what they were doing, how their life changed....

He survived the storm, only to find out that the Levee had broken and that water was making its way into the city - Instead of evacuating, he went to the local hospital and helped vacate the patients. Over 20 cars, just regular people, help evacuating patients on respirators. He then returned to help a local Hospice which needed help. 1/3 of the patients there had already perished because generators had failed.... To get to the hospice, they had to take buses with an escort from a bunch national guardsmen. There was another guy who went around saving people who were stuck in their flooded houses.... He paddled in his tiny canoe from house to house. While passing by an estate, he noticed a boat with some keys in the ignition and decided to use the boat instead of his canoe. After a week, he returned the boat and wrote, "This boat saved 400 people"

I love stories.
People are truly just stories.
Your life is one big story...
And it ends when you blink....

Anyways........I liked the photographer's story so much.....I kept wondering, "What other stories are out there?" - So, of course, I ended up at the local bar.

My favorite story of tonight was this one girl. She vacated her house - packing her husband, two kids, two dogs, three chickens, and an iguana.... to a hotel in Arkansas. Where she lived for 5 months with the chicken eating crackers on the bed. Anyways, She said when she got home, she barely recognized her house. Her grass was 3 feet high. And her refrigerator - which she never emptied, had crab legs, hamburgers, and pork inside it for 5 months in 90 degree heat. She had her husband tape it up and put it out on the street..... FEMA sent her a $2000 check total for her 5 month and now they are sending her letters asking her to pay the money back. They believe she misused it because she bought a new refrigerator with it... "So I wrote them a letter back and I said, 'Well I'd like to pay you back. But lets see you squeeze blood from a turnip.'"