Pete "the Greek" Skaroulis

This is Pete "the Greek" Skaroulis. He's was the focus of my story in Red Bays, Bahamas. He employs a majority of the males in Red Bays, by organizing boats to go out sponging and crayfishing. Once they get back from their 1-3 week long expeditions collecting the goods, he buys them from the workers at an extremely cheap price and sells them abroad. He's connected to Tarpon Springs and supplies them with all their sponges. He also sends sponges to Europe and Greece. Without him, the people of Red Bays would have a very hard time selling their sponges, so many of them cherish his presence. He is 76 and still going strong. He is missing half of his feet from barracuda poisoning and still uses Viagara. He's quite the character.

In this photo, he is dropping off a crew to go out to fix one of his boats that broke down.

Yellow Eyes

This is Dencil Knowles. He said his eyes are yellow from drinking and smoking too much. When I first met him, he was already drunk at 7 in the morning. He was even pouring out some of his rum for Pete's puppy to drink (I'll introduce Pete, my story subject, later). The dog loved it.

To Andros and Back

I spent the last week in Andros Island, Bahamas as part of a journalism class called Florida FlyIns. We worked hard all week, waking up at 5:30 am and working until the evening on stories around the island. I worked with Dominick on a story about sponging in a small town called Red Bays. In the short period of time we were there, it seemed like we developed a routine in the town. We got to know who was who and got to the point where the people knew us and we knew them. They were all very open and honest. What struck me the most was how they can be so happy while struggling to feed their families. Being used to a place where material possessions are so important, this trip really put some things in perspective. I shot constantly all week, so I'll try and post a new photo each day.

In this photo, Kendra Gibson says goodbye to her boyfriend Jackson Russell moments before leaving for three weeks to go out on a crayfish boat.

A Russian Wedding

I shot a wedding this past weekend between a Ukranian and an American. They were a very open and fun couple, and most the guests were speaking Russian the whole time, which made it quite interesting. Here, Mariana got some pollen on her cheek while shooting the picture below. I always like the moments that happen in between setting up portraits.

Sunday Morning

I went to a baptist church this morning for the religion section of the Guardian. They cover something like this every Sunday morning, and it's always an interesting crowd. Old women dressed in their finest garb with fancy hats, singing, dancing and a fair share of "Amens."

Plummers Published PDFs

This is how the published article and photos came out. I think it looks really nice, and I know Bryan pushed it as hard as he could.

The Plummers Published

The Plummers photo story I had been working on in the last month of my internship was published in the Monroe Evening News on Labor Day with photos, a story and an audio slideshow. I haven't seen how it looked in the paper yet, but I'll post the PDFs once I get them. But for now, here's the slideshow:
http://www.monroepublishing.com/multimedia/plummers/

Pig Feet and Blood

I know I haven't updated in a while. But when you go from working 40 hours a week to working virtually none, you tend to produce a bit less. I'm working on getting back into the groove here in Gainesville, so hopefully I'll be posting more frequently from now on. I went to Kansas City over the weekend to visit my family and went to a butcher shop there.

Earth, Wind, Water and Fire

I spent the past couple weeks on a short road trip, making my way back to Gainesville after finishing my internship in Michigan. It was the perfect break before coming back to school. First, I went to Niagara Falls for a day, then onto North Carolina, where I went backpacking for four nights. Ended up driving a total of 1,300 miles.The Maid of the Mist took us to the bottom of the Canadian Falls. It was hard to face the wind and water shooting at the boat and it was impossible to keep my camera dry, but it was worth it.
40 isn't old if you're a tree...

Overexposed

I took this when Kohl and I were testing the lights for a portrait series we did at the local fair. This was overexposed.