Ennui

A personal reminder never to let it get in the way of making pictures.

Congrats!

My little sister, Roxanne, isn't so little anymore. She is the last of five of us to graduate from Warwick High and I won't be there to see it, so I'll have to rely on this cyber shout-out. Roxanne, I hope you get your senior pics in time to hand them out to your cronies. Savor the day. I love you. Your big brother.

Final Fitting

Pamela is the recent victim of a mail scam that left her with three drained bank accounts and financial hardship as she prepares for her wedding on June 21. "It just all seemed too good to be true, and it was," she said of the check she received that led to her demise. Here, Pamela gets fitted for the wedding gown she plans to wear on her big day, and which she didn't want me to show in its entirety and so spoil the surprise for her fiancé.

The Fellowship is Broken

Well ol' boy, we certainly didn't see eye to eye on many things. We did, however, enjoy a game of street ball from time to time, where calling fouls was for sissies. We spent a lot of money on movies - some good, some bad - and rarely agreed on whether or not they were good. We ate a lot of good food: your chili dip is to die for and your sweet tea put me in a rocking chair on a porch in the hills of Kentucky. Whether you know it or not, you challenged me to acknowledge my ignorance. You taught me that photojournalism is primarily about people, and I can remember the one conversation we had that was a big inspiration for starting my column. I hope that you find a way to continue telling stories to people, whether on paper or by the fire, because you're incredibly good at it, and I know that whatever you wholeheartedly direct your effort toward will have great potential to influence others. Whether analyzing bat guano, fighting forest fires, or documenting your world, I believe you have a purpose on this earth that may be largely unknown to you right now, and that you will find it. Thanks for everything, Brett.