First Week

My first week at the Valley News is finished and I survived. The newspaper is small (cir. about 20,000) but what it lacks in size it does make up for in commitment and quality. It is nice to be back in New Hampshire and able to photograph the type of people I grew up around.

There are some really strong photographers here. A few graduates of Ohio and Mizzou and I'm looking forward to absorbing all I can from them. I'm supposed to be interning as a multimedia specialist and so soon I'll be posting video and multimedia pieces. I 'm particularly excited about the video series I'll be working on. So keep checking back. More to come..

Burundi Final Story

So it has been awhile since the last post, finals have taken up most of my time. But I got to spend a lot of the last week with a refugee family from Burundi for my final photo project. I wish I could stay longer in Bowling Green to shoot them more but I leave for home tonight. They will have to wait until the fall.
Here are a few that I like. There are so many to show, but anyway..


The story behind this family is still hard for me to understand. They all speak Kirundi, a West African language similar to Swahili and mostly spoken in Burundi and Tanzania, and I have only picked up a few words and phrases.


This woman here Erina, the head of the family. She's grandmother to Evangeline, above left, and mother to the focus of the story, Josephine. She is a powerful woman and a bit intimidating to meet for the first time. She speaks the least amount of English out of the family but I try my Kirundi and she usually laughs. I think we're laughing together.

There is a large population of Burundi refugees in Bowling Green. Everyday I see new families and kids coming in and out of the their house. I wonder why so many Burundese are here and not as many people from more distressed countries such as Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I'm heading back home to New Hampshire soon and there is an immigration office in Manchester. I'm interested to see what they will know about refugee immigration, especially in New Hampshire.

Greek Week

Greek WEEK! is going on. Which means a visual feast for the photogs who brave the ridiculousness. I know some avoid the events like the plague but I like them. It's a lot of cheering and drinking and doing stupid stuff (which is all great to shoot), and there is something underneath it that says a lot about the Greeks and people in general.

I mean there is nothing like a night of boxing in an old warehouse with victory, defeat and a dirty cheering crowd to make you feel really really human.
If only it were bare knuckle...

So here are a few from the first event, Spring Sing. More Greeks to come..


There was some intensity

Ready to take the stage, eyeing the competition

Each Fraternity and Sorority came up with a song and dance routine to be judged. They all got a different letter in the alphabet to base there music on. One group could do Beatles, Bengals, Betty Boop, you know whatever started with B, and the next group had N and so on.

Around the Park

After me and Dijana finished shooting some food for The Brickyard Restaurant's website we decided to hang around downtown Franklin for awhile. There was some great evening light and Dijana played model for awhile. She did a pretty good job.

From Farmers to Vegans

So after finishing my assignment on dairy farmers it was on to an assignment for the Talisman about vegans at Western. Its kinda funny how those two overlapped. I was in a dairy barn working on the farmer story and my vegan contact calls me. I'm surrounded by cows and she starts telling me how I shouldn't eat meat or dairy. But I don't think she convinced me. But she did get me thinking. Especially when I saw how the cows get hooked up to machines and when I noticed just how unnatural a dairy cow looks.. 
But anyway, Summer Brown and her boyfriend are among some of the nicest people I've met. They let me right into the house, cooked me dinner and let me hang around for a fire afterward.


vegans drink from the carton too

They cooked a great vegan meal. I know it doesn't sound good but take my word for it, dairy-free cheese is delicious





Can't wait to go back and see what they have growing in their community vegetable garden. More vegans sure to come...

Farmer story

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