It’s been a minute since I’ve posted a session but we’ve kind of had a rough time down here in South Louisiana.  This multi-generational photo shoot was photographed in Houma, just one week before a major hurricane destroyed a large portion of our area.   If you aren’t from around here, Hurricane Ida made landfall in Louisiana as a category 4 hurricane with winds speeds up to 172 mph – exactly one month ago today (and exactly 16 years to the day after Katrina).   That kind of wind is hard to wrap your head around.  Even watching videos live during the storm, you just can’t quite fathom that.  Even though there are many parts of our state that are bouncing back and life is slowly returning to normal, there are many, many more areas that are a long way from recovering.   The Bayou towns south of us were the hardest hit.   When I drove down there a couple of weeks ago, the devastation was hard to believe – even seeing it with my own eyes.  I try to break it down into smaller chunks in my head just to grasp just how much destruction there was.   For example, tree removal can generally cost around $5000 per tree.  Now multiply that times hundreds, maybe thousands.  Entergy, one of several power companies in the area, had over 30,000 poles down from the storm between Louisiana and Mississippi.   According to Google, each of those poles can cost $2000 – $3000 dollars and this is only the poles.  This doesn’t account for the spans of wire and transformers that were destroyed.  Then there are the homes … hundreds (thousands?) of homes are unlivable.  Many of these people do not have insurance and are relying on government help that just isn’t coming fast enough.   There are families literally living in TENTS in their yards.  Can you even imagine??  When we have major storms down here, it makes the news for 2 maybe 3 days and then the world moves on.  Meanwhile, the people who live in the path struggle for months on end.   Lake Charles, where Hurricane Laura hit in 2020, still has a long road ahead of them and it’s been over a year.  I just don’t think the rest of the country grasps the situation here.

But that went way off on a tangent … let’s look back on this beautiful Sunday afternoon when I met up with this sweet family.   Marion and Calvin will be celebrating 50 years of marriage this year.  This session was organized by their children, Jodie and Cal, to honor that occasion.  They will also be having a vow renewal ceremony / celebration in a few months.  I enjoyed meeting their entire family, including their 3 grandchildren.  What a beautiful legacy they’ve created over their 50 years together!

Congratulations Calvin and Marion – I’ll see you guys in February!