After a twenty year career as a Pediatric Intensive Care nurse, and after returning to Louisiana from Connecticut, I put down the tools of my previous life, picked up a kayak paddle and a camera and started over.  I rediscovered the wetlands of northeastern Louisiana and probed their depths with the reverence of a first time explorer. 

For the past several years I have been developing a fine art study of northeastern Louisiana - the overlooked region that lies between the Mississippi and Ouachita Rivers - that I have entitled "Rooted Firmly in Place."  I have wandered along the bayous and through the vast farmland and rural communities that rise from it collecting photographs - images that tell the story of this land and what it gives to those of us who live here season after season, generation after generation. 

My goal is not just to document this area but to really crawl inside it and see what makes it unique.  In black & white I am able to get closer to the bones of what I am photographing and discover images I never imagined existed.  Those discoveries, along with the sheer joy I experience through my camera, inspire me to continue.