Sarasota is not really known for the Spring Break vacation destination as much as places like Daytona are, but it sure came through last night.  Siesta Key normally draws in (older, richer, familier (?!)) tourists or students crashing at their grandparent’s condo, but for a few months now it can actually rival the beach towns on the east coast of Florida.  I decided to set out to make a Spring Break kick-off photo and ended up deciding to cover two bikini contests at Gilligan’s Island Bar & Grill and The Beach Club in Siesta Key one right after another.  Pretty insane.

What made these contests a bit different was the lack of ringers, or circuit girls who travel the country basically claiming first prizes $500 at a time.  These were made for girls plucked right off Siesta Key Beach who wanted to have their Spring Break (read: Girls Gone Wild) moment - just a little milder.  No blurred out body parts, no model releases, but plenty of booze.

Made for some fun shooting, for sure, but I feel pretty damn old right about now.  I’m married, 32, two daughters, and it’s stressful imagining that I might find some photos like this of my girls someday.  For right now, it’s Dora the Explorer and less Dora the Exhibitionist.

“I’ve been out of the game for so long, man….”

I literally made this frame as I was walking out of the Charlotte County Fair with a lame 4-H picture that is always made at fairs, but for some reason the midway drew me in.  It was pouring rain and the place was a ghost town.  Vendors were sitting around staring from their amazingly well-lit, saturated booths, for some resemblance of a human to try to get $5 for 3 balls to try to win a hastily-made Spongebob stuffed toy.   As twilight fell, the reds and yellows from the rides began highlighting dirty puddles.  Picked one and waited for something to move through it.  Could care less of what it was.  Had about 15 minutes to make a deadline…with a preset hole.

Anyhoo, sorry about the lack of posts, I’ve been swamped with a ton of freelance work I can’t share yet.  That’s a good thing, but eternally frustrating when you want to keep a blog updated.  Pesky contracts.

I’m getting ready to head to an undisclosed location for travel piece for The New York Times.  Not Haiti.  Meanwhile, the wonderful reporter I work with in Florida a lot from the NYT, Damien Cave, is in Haiti sending dispatches and one of my favorite photographers, Damon Winter, is producing perhaps some of the most compelling, gut-wrenching, and visually stunning work I’ve seen in a long time.  It’s hard not to get jealous - Scott Strazzante has a great blog post about that feeling which I share.  In part.

On the other hand, someone has to cover the other stuff.

Soon, headlines will start creeping back to normal type and smaller fonts.  Photos will run smaller.  Media agencies will pull out of the country.  One thing I haven’t felt in a while, though, is a renewed sense of the importance of photojournalism and what we do.  I had that thought this morning when I realized I never wanted to watch a television news broadcast again.  It’s so watered down, so filtered, so crafted and manufactured it makes me sick.  I seek refuge in the glowing screen of my computer and photo galleries, newspapers, magazines and blogs which are putting these photos everywhere.  The photos are what people are sharing.  Twitter posts about journalists’ posts from the ground.  Facebook postings with links to photo galleries.  Photos.  Not video.  Not multimedia.  Not a talking head in front of rubble waxing poetic about what a producer saw earlier in the day.  Not showing up to the airport, setting up a live shot, saying you’re there covering the story and leaving.  Photos.  Photos that need no text.  Just space to breathe and be seen.

I don’t know, but there is something to this.  The weeks following 9/11, the Tsunami, and Katrina were the same way.  The photos made these events are closer to home, more accessible.  Touchable.  Smellable.

Here are the photos and the photogs behind them.  I’m sure there’s a Pulitzer in here somewhere.

By the way, if you’re not there now, and don’t have a publication behind you, what in the hell are you doing there?  Making work to enter a contest in a situation like this is unimaginable.  I understand the need and the want to be there, but if you’re planning the trip, make sure you’re ready and you’re going for the right reasons.  You are on your own, don’t put this on Haiti or the relief agencies there.  They have enough to deal with.

Things like this:

The New York Times:  Running Daily Gallery

Damon Winter/The New York Times:  Interview and Gallery

Carloyn Cole/Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times:  Running Photo Blog

Carol Guzy/Washington Post:  Gallery

Patrick Farrell/Miami Herald:  Gallery

Dominic Nahr/Wall Street Journal:  Blog

Gerald Herbert/AP:  Feed

Ron Haviv/VII:  Feed (Soon to Updated)

(Oh, and it is really annoying to have to sit through a Ford ad to see photos, but it is probably paying for a newspaper’s ability to do said story.  Doesn’t mean I’m going to buy a Ford F-150, but I’ll deal with it.  I’d probably let them sponsor this blog.)

Florida never ceases to amaze me.  Just when I think I have been around long enough to know my state, a story comes along that make me go, “really?”  That happened when I got a call from The New York Times last week about tropical fish farming being hit hard by the recent freeze we’ve been having for going on two weeks.  Florida produces half of the tropical fish sold in the country.  Who knew?

I was sent out with Damien Cave again to wander the backroads of our state.  They lie on dirt roads, tucked away behind trailers that resemble meth labs more than multi-million dollar fish farms.  Once there, huge ponds filled with water so thick you can’t see the fish until they are netted.  When we showed up at both farms, the breeders and farmers were racing to try to save what was left of their plecos, mollies, and angelfish.  One little detail I loved was the tanks they used are cast from human vaults for burial sites.  Circle of life.

Alas, these guys were very gracious with their time in the midst of their turmoil, even though they are watching hundreds of thousands of dollars pretty much freeze right in front of them.  If it’s not the cold, it’s the birds who come and eat the stunned fish.  If it’s not that, it’s the stalled production time.  They’re getting hit hard.

Visually, what peaked my interest was the facilities themselves that resemble greenhouses on the outside, but inside they take on the persona of old movie sci-fi labs, hot as hell, with an odor of boys locker room.  Very strange, but fascinating.

Alas, to the photos, I am going with texture and tone over color and content.  If you want to check out the originals in color, go check out the story and gallery at the NYT here.