Pressure to leave

Inside a FEMA trailer park in High Island, Texas, Yvonne VanZandt said she and her husband are being badgered by caseworkers even though they have signed a contract with a builder and could have their home rebuilt by the trailer program's March 12 deadline. She said caseworkers told her they would photograph her property to see if work was being done. (quote from story by Houston Chronicle reporter Harvey Rice).

Yvonne VanZandt, posing next to her trailer, Nov. 13, 2009 in High Island, TX. FEMA is forcing out of her trailer before the trailer program ends March 12. FEMA is forcing her family out even though a house to replace the one washed away by Hurricane Ike is likely to be completed before the trailer program ends. She is one of many residents who complain about FEMA pressure to move out before the program ends. FEMA is ending its temporary housting program for hurricane Ike victims even though it extended the program in Louisiana for four years. FEMA is selling trailers to Ike victims for prices ranging from $3,400 to $16,000, but in Louisiana they were sold for under $100.

Dusk in the reflection

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________University of Houston freshman Daniel Rojas attempts to throw a frisbee from a handstand to sophomore Edwin Castaneda as they play during a break from classes Oct. 27, 2009 in Houston, TX. They were both on an Ultimate Frisbee team, but didn't have time for practice due to their class load. The former Klein Forest high school students usually play once or twice a week at U of H. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Evon Washington has been a framer for 27 years at Heritage Art Gallery, located on Almeda. Oct. 6, 2009 in Houston, TX.

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91-year-old Milo W. Ford, who was recently honored for playing the organ for 70 years at the First United Methodist Church in Dayton, TX, sits before his organ, Oct. 23, 2009 at the church. He also would manually ring the daily chimes each day at 5 pm when he was 13 years old. He only stopped while attending Rice University (and would return home to play many times) and when serving in WWII for a few years and three years that he was hospitalized with TB. He also worked as janitor at the local bank as a boy...and grew up to be the bank president and serve three years as the town's mayor.

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A C-17A flies past a grounded C130 airplane at Wings Over Houston Airshow, Oct. 31, 2009 in Houston, TX at Ellington Airfield.

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Mike Daly, with the commemorative Air Force, looks at a P-47 as it is started at Wings Over Houston Airshow, Oct. 31, 2009 in Houston, TX at Ellington Airfield. Daly said the plane is a predecessor to the A-10 tank killer, and was used in WWII during the invasion of Normandy. His uniform is from WWII-era 82nd Airborne. Daly is retired from the Air Force.

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Bea Uhl, standing inside a B-24 bomber, looks out on a F-18 Hornet performing maneuvers at Wings Over Houston Airshow, Oct. 31, 2009 in Houston, TX at Ellington Airfield.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Aaron Phillips dressed as "A.J. 3000 as Pimp Lucius" at the Lone Star Rally, Oct. 31, 2009 in Galveston, TX in the Strand.

Primarily portraits

Quick post

Miguel Favela, 11, poses Feb. 6, 2009 at Brenham Middle School in Brenham, TX. Kelly Favela, a 31-year-old divorced mom, put her mentally disabled son in Lufkin State School last June. Less than a week later, he was in an ambulance on his way to a Houston hospital after being overdosed with insulin. An investigation found that he was misdiagnosed as a diabetic by a doctor at the state school who failed to check his medical records. Miguel Favela, 11, is now at a different state school in Brenham but Kelly continues to have concerns about his welfare. Like thousands of other parents faced with how to work and care for their mentally disabled children, Kelly, a hospital social worker, made the difficult decision to place her son in one of 13 large state-run residential facilities, schools that are now in the vortex of a debate over what to do to make them better, or whether to keep them open at all.

Winter post

Last update of 2008

Hello Blog Viewers, This is the last installment for 2008. If I remember correctly, this past year has been my longest continuous employment in my life as a photojournalist. It will be a year in February at the Houston Chronicle. All previous employment in photojournalism has been punctuated by soul-searching careers in completely unrelated fields, grad school and multiple three-month internships.

In the past year, I've watched my co-workers go out on hum-drum assignments and come back with pretty spectacular work. I have to remind myself that while I was off living on a beach in California driving a milk truck and watching the sun set into the Pacific, these folks were honing their craft on a daily basis.

I'd like to think after a year that I'm starting to hit some kind of groove in my daily work. Once in a while in the past year I would come back with a pretty good photo and then go months without anything decent. Time will tell. There is still plenty of room for improvement.

I think in the next year, my photo journalistic resolution is to bag some projects. Everyone is different, and while I've attempted projects outside of school at different internships, they've always felt rushed and usually fell short in some aspect. I wanted to give myself time to get settled in, let the city enter my blood and find a story organically.

A few ideas have since lined themselves up. In the recent past, the ideas seemed forced and more focused on the academic concept of what makes a good story - almost like listening to a robot play a concerto instead of a musician playing with emotion.

I hope everyone had a good year. Until the next post...

Cheers,

Eric Kayne

A light month

Hi Loyal Viewers, By light a light month, I by no means light in terms of workload, only in terms of pictures I have to show. I wish I had more, but I don't, so please enjoy what I have. I'm thinking about starting a new project or two in the coming month, so stay tuned. I'm kind of excited about them and the initial results have been encouraging.

Cheers,

EK

October 2008

Religion from on high

Recently recent

Whew!

Got through my first hurricane intact. Twelve days without power, but some folks in town STILL don't have power as of Oct. 1, 2008. Crazy, huh? And this was only a category 2 hurricane (although the storm surge was equivalent to a category 4 hurricane). I spent most of my time doing local coverage here in Houston, although I did spend a little time in Galveston, Seabrook, and Kemah.

Its good that life is finally resembling some semblance of normality. I can cook in my kitchen again, take a hot shower, browse the internet in my air-conditioned bedroom. I guess it was a bit like camping, only more like getting lost and spending more time in the great outdoors than originally planned.

Ike stuff will come later. First some stuff I couldn't post last time because it hadn't been published yet.

Cheers,

Eric

Two theaters in Houston are starting to show movies in the South Indian languages of Tamil, Malayalam, and Telegu made in India's smaller, but just as prolific as Bollywood, South Indian movie industry. There are also three new radio shows in town targeting the growing community, many of whom have come here in recent years as engineers or students.

Prasad Kalva and Damador Valluri started the Andhra Mirchi and Tamil Mirchi radio shows earlier this year to tap into the growing South Indian market in Houston.

During the rehabilitation and discharge from the hospital, I got to spend a little time with a family that was inside the bus that crashed in Sherman, TX resulting in 17 fatalities.

The Bui family, all five of whom were in the Sherman bus crash Aug. 8. Three were seriously injured; the two youngest children were banged up but didn't spend inpatient time in the hospital. Thiep Bui, the father, and Matthew Bui, his 15-year-old son, both eventually left the Dallas hospital where they've been doing therapy for the past week. They leave behind Thui Tran, the mother, who is still in Baylor's ICU, although improving modestly.  The next day, Thiep was sent home while his son was to remain at the hospital for further rehabilitation and observation.

Heat and humidity

Its the first thing people sometimes think of when the word "Houston" is mentioned. The city has been living up to its expectations lately. I've had a recent dose of time-travel when my air conditioner in my tiny garage apartment hit the skids. I've been thinking to myself "so this is what it was like for people here before the mid-20th century." With heat also comes increased activity. I've been frenetic and again have let my blogging skills lapse. Not having my regular steady stream of temperature-controlled, dehumidified air into my humble 300 square foot flat, however, has given me pause, enough to bring you the following blog post...

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We should do this more often

Okay, so I've been slacking a bit on updating my blog. Its been a busy month. Also, I have to wait until things publish in the paper before I can present them here. So without further adieu, here are some recent and not-so-recent images. Remember when the Rockets were still in the running? They fell out after a record 21 straight game streak that got them into the playoffs.

I had to photograph this next one twice. The first time I didn't notice the guy in the very back wasn't sharp. I came back a second time with a tripod. A lesson learned, I photographed them inside a wreck of a building they'll eventually transform into their collective.

l.

The Art Car Parade, a 21-year tradition of artists decorating cars and parading them through central Houston is an ode to the city's creative spirit. Unfortunately, this year's festival ended in tragedy when the beloved photography curator at the Art Car Museum, Tom Jones, was killed by a drunk driver. Jones was sitting on a curb outside the museum in the early morning hours following the parade relaxing with friends when a car hit another car parked at the curb. The parked car slammed into Jones and killed him. The following images are from the parade and the following memorial the next day and a week later.

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Also depressing was the demolition of an almost century-old church in the third ward in Houston. Some community members were in the final stages of getting the decrepit building a historical designation. One morning, however, the bricks spontaneously fell from one side of the building. It was later decided the building needed to be demolished immediately.

Not to leave you depressed, I end this blog entry with...tiny horses. Everyone loves tiny horses. Please enjoy.

What I've been up to until now, part deux

What I've been up to until now

Purveyor of designer jeans

From a business assignment I shot today. This guy was really cool to work with and I love a success story.

Holi Festival of Colors

10,000 gathered to help celebrate the Holi Festival of Colors at Oyster Creek Park in Sugar Land, TX.

Hoops

I covered the Texas State Basketball championships in Austin. Here are a few highlights:

Random array

From politics to food, the last couple of weeks have been busy. Here are a few of my favorites.

Lech Walesa, right, is a patient at Methodist Hospital, where he's being evaluated for a possible heart transplant. Witold J. Lukaszewski, PhD, center, a political science professor at Sam Houston State University, translates for Walesa.

Speaking of walks down memory lane...

Talk about getting out of one's comfort zone, I had to shoot some food last Thursday. I had some time though and tried to make some nice pictures of a couple of dishes from cajun-type cookbook.

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Whew!

Wow, okay so after working eight straight days and with a car trunk full of dirty laundry, I thought I'd stop at my local coffee house and do some blogging before I start on my laundering escapades. The point for the time being will be to publish things that for whatever reason never got to hit the page, either web or print because of space considerations or what have you. Or pictures that played teeny-tiny on the page, or pictures with wild color that for some reason ran two-column inside black and white.

I'm not going to post every single bit of minutiae. Most of the pictures I make are fairly banal. They're important to the reader or the person in the picture, but most of the time they don't make the cut for me in terms of style and content. Not to say everything you see on here will be blazing awesome, but just some work I want to share with parents and friends who can't otherwise see my work.

That's it for now. Stay tuned...