View Obscura

I travel down Highway 71 from Alexandria to Baton Rouge several times a week and I always take note of all the interesting locations that I pass through. Today I decided to pull off the road and capture a few images of things I pass by day after day. Instead of focusing my lens of any of the numerous abandoned buildings I instead wanted to capture some images that tell a story about the rural areas that are often times ignored. Louisiana Bucket List Adventure Guide: Explore 100 Offbeat Destinations You Must Visit! - $14.99 @ Amazon.com When people outside the state think about Louisiana they often conjure up images of New Orleans during Mardi Gras, vast swamps and wetlands and crawfish cookouts. Those things a certainly part of the Louisiana experience, but there is way more to it than just that. There are backroads that wind through vast farmland and rugged forested areas that cover the majority of the state's territory. These areas are known to locals but travelers from out of st...

This series of photos were taken in and around the three central Louisiana towns of Lecompte, Cheneyville, and Bunkie during the last week of 2021. They are a collection of images that illustrate the decline of all three towns. Though once prosperous these municipalities have suffered the same fate as numerous others around the United States. A new highway was built to the west and people traveling from Baton Rouge to Shreveport no longer need to stop here for gas food and lodging. When you combine that with the fact that census data indicates that tens of thousands of people are now leaving Louisiana each year for prosperity in other areas of the country and that the area's main source of income, sugarcane, is beginning to decline due to food manufacturers using heathier alternatives to sugar it isn't hard to envision a bleak future for this region.   Though many of these photos were take just after sunrise the sun has sadly already set on these three American towns. Here is ...