Since childhood I’ve been fascinated with the unique American culture that lives in southern Louisiana on water beyond land’s end. After witnessing the 2005 Hurricane Katrina and the damage to our coastal wetlands, I began my journey to explore and document these swamps, a part of America’s Wetlands. My first tour was shortly after Katrina to the Barataria swamps between Lafitte and Grand Isle, Louisiana, just south of New Orleans. The locals call these former communities “the Ustabes,” because these fishing villages “used to be” there, but aren’t anymore. Since then I've been from the Pearl river border of Southeast LA to the heart of the Atchafalaya. I've seen and photdocumneted these sites. I've met the people and have heard their stories. This is my attempt to visually preserve this vanishing way of life.
