Day 4

Today I made it to a groundbreaking ceremony for the future site of the St. Bernard Parish Fire Department's Station 8 just in time to hear "Hey Nick, you just missed it." This was after I had the wrong address of the ceremony for Station 6 at 8:30 and our Super-Soccer Mom had driven all over southern Louisiana to drop off three other students and bring me back for the 9:30 groundbreaking of Station 8 (which, it turned out, was really at 9:00). I must have been visibly bummed because Chief Stone said "...we'll stage one for ya." After getting that shot a news camera showed up and they did another "real" one, and I got that shot too.


After the groundbreaking(s) we drove back to pick up everyone else and back, again, to St. Bernard so I could make some portraits of the Chief (who has been so helpful and generous) and the dispatchers who work behind the scenes and are often forgotten in projects like these. This, of course, took much longer than I expected because these people are so nice and wanted to talk and share stories and pictures with me. I was more than willing to listen and learn but there were four exhausted and sweaty people waiting in a sweet minivan for me to finish so they could go rest before our afternoon plans. I ended up making these poor souls sit for an hour while I was in the air conditioning laughing it up and trying to get the Chief to look at the camera. I would like to thank Becky, Lisa, Kristyna and Peter for being so patient. I hope these results are worth the pain and suffering they endured.

Chief Thomas Stone

Firefighter Richard Lee