David Newsom Pictures

The Race To Save The Great White Begins...

2012-01-09T21:22:00.000-08:00

I've just returned from a very quick but completely kick-ass trip to Tampa, Florida to witness the seatest of the research vessel OCEAN, prior to it's history making venture in South Africa. There it's crew of fishermen will team up with several renowned marine biologists for a comprehensive and controversial study of Great White sharks. OCEARCH founder and outspoken visionary, Chris Fischer, is overseeing the project, with the hopes of protecting not just Great Whites, but all sharks from extinction at the hands of over-fishing and the heinous practice of "finning". God willing, the ship arrives in Cape Town, and the adventure of the crew and biologists about the Ocean will begin. For now, just a quick look at the fishing crew half of this incredible project:

OCEARCH Founder and Team Visionary Chris Fischer

Co-captain Jody Witworth

Captain Brett McBride

First Engineer Denny Wagner

Deckhand Juan Valencia

Deckhand Alex Snow

Thanksgiving Day, 2011

2011-12-28T21:57:00.001-08:00

Iphone
Friday Harbor, San Juan Island

A Man is a God in Ruins

2011-12-28T21:45:00.001-08:00

IPhone-
Will Lyons, reflecting on a burning sensation.
Placerville, CA,
Nat Geo, WILD JUSTICE

Burn

2011-12-28T21:41:00.001-08:00

IPhone
Goofing around while shooting a controlled burn above Placerville, CA. for Nat Geo's WILD JUSTICE.

Dante's Peak, Sunset

2011-12-28T21:37:00.001-08:00

IPhone-
Dec, 2011

Orange/Bowl

2011-12-28T21:35:00.001-08:00

Iphone
Dec. 27, 2011

Winter in LA, Dec. 27, 2011

2011-12-28T21:31:00.001-08:00

no message

More Travels With IPhone...

2011-07-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

Live Through This

Messing with various IPhone apps- "Camera +", "Instagram" and "True HDR" for the most part. When I'm either too lazy or not in the mind of full sensor DSLR (or plain SLR) cameras, these Apps make footnoting the journey pretty fun.

Double click for full size.

Plant, Pot, Stand, Deck, Earth, etc"

Yard Art #1

Ginny's Yellow House

Wall/Flower#1

Wall/Flower#2

Wall/Flower#3

Summer Inside

Makena Lei Turns Away

Abandoned #2

Fence At Darby

Coffee Shop

Thai Restaurant, Idaho

New Paint Job

Wild Irises, Trailer, Shack

True House of Blues and Arrowroot

Heaven#2

Ginny's New Bridge

Huck Catches A Boat Downstream

Random Travels With IPhone - 6.23.11

2011-06-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

An original house of blues. Driggs, ID. 6.22.11

Window Facing West- Driggs, Idaho. 6.22.11

Flowering Bush Meets Storm- Driggs, ID. 6.22.11

Trailer/Storage- Driggs, ID. 6.22.11

Fresh Grass. Driggs, ID 6.22.11

Larkspur. Driggs, ID 6.22.11

Parking Lot and Vintage Sign. Burbank, CA 3.11

Garage Wall. Burbank, CA 4.2011

Wild Iris, blooming bush. Driggs, ID 6.22.11

Alley and storage containers. Burbank, CA. 4.11

Self Portrait. Burbank, CA 2.2011

Alley. Burbank, CA 2.2011

Frozen Sea Foam. St Paul, AK 1.2011

Alley. Burbank, CA. 3.2011

Polar Bear. Anchorage, AK 1.2011

Reticulate Cloud. Unalaska, AK 11.2011

Shack. Unalaska, AK 1.2011

Reticulate Cloud. Unalaska, AK 11.2011

Frozen Sea Foam. St Paul, AK 1.2011

Polar Bear Behind Glass #2 Anchorage, AK 1.2011

Indoor Pool. Quality Inn, Beaver UT. 1.2011

Dumpster & Hotel Window. Beaver, UT 1.2011

Unalaska Bay, AK. 1.2011

"SKIP" featured in this month's issue of "LOVE ISSUE MAGAZINE"

2011-02-20T18:18:00.000-08:00

I'm very humbled to be one of the featured artists in this months "LOVE ISSUE MAGAZINE", by Constantin Nimigean.

Intimate, powerful work on family by Tierney Gearon, Aline Smithson and others.

Wild Horses of Summer's Bay, Unalaska

2011-02-19T15:09:00.000-08:00

Mare's Gone Wild- Summer's Bay, Unalaska

Rule Number One:

While visiting or living in Unalaska, never ask a local to take you to see "the horses". It's code for, "Wanna go on a date?", and makes you immediately suspect. Same goes for the question, "Hey, wanna go for a hike?" In Unalaska, it's all just a badly concealed come-on.

Summer's Bay- 12/2010

So, if you want to see the wild horses of Summer's Bay, you gotta go by yourself. Unless someone really does just want to see the horses and they ask you first. Either way, go. The drive up Summer's Bay road from the city of Unalaska immediately pitches you into the rugged beauty of the island, and austere collision of velvet, mountain tundra and the dynamic coastlines of the Aleutian peninsula, teeming with marine life.

Looking south toward Dutch Harbor from Summer's Bay 11/2010

The lure of the horses may get you in the car, but, as the saying goes, the journey is the destination. Any free time I had while working on Deadliest Catch was spent exploring the fecund coastline or plodding in my Xtra-Tuff boots over the soft tundra moonscape panning out from the road.

Summer's Bay- lava rocks and steady swell. 12/2010

How the "wild" herd got there is a source of constant debate, and since- as I said- talking about them also seems to qualify as trying to hit on someone, you're not likely to get a straight answer from anyone who really knows, since they're too busy running away from you. But they seem to have arrived within the last 20 years, and they aren't really "wild", just feral. Feral, that is, but desperate for Cliff Bars, granola, apples and anything else you have in your pockets. That being said, approach at your own risk. I took my friend (and boss) Bill Pruitt out there a few weeks ago and his friendly approach to one tempermental mare earned him a swift kick and a Charley horse.

Pretty, but packs a punch. 11/2010

11/2010

1/2011

12/2010

But in a land where boats set out to fish in frigid, 30 foot seas, remote populations go weeks without oil deliveries and pilots land planes in winds that's whiten even the most weathered welders knuckles, getting kicked by an agitated mare is getting off easy. And, who knows, you might never see them at all, after all, they're wild. Sort of.

1/2011

My last sighting 1/2011

Feb 20, 2011

Ropes, Nets and Buoys- Dutch Harbor, Pt. Two

2010-12-17T16:40:00.000-08:00

Dutch Harbor was born from the sea. The tundra wreaks havoc on nitrogen levels and makes traditional farming profoundly difficult, so most islanders - from early Unagan natives to the multi-cultural collision that now calls Dutch home - farm the sea. Or, in some way live off it's gifts.

So, all around Unalaska, Iliuliuk and Captains bay, one can find caches of nets, crab pots and buoys. Most are stored for boats which are either docked or at sea and will eventually find their way onto a deck bound for the Bering Sea or points beyond. In the meantime, they stand as sculptural installations, perches for ravens and eagles, even mineral rich stashes for intrepid grasses. Either way, they have their appeal.

Welcome to Dutch Harbor. Pt One

2010-11-18T01:19:00.000-08:00

Photo by Casey Kusyk

Hi.
Long time no blog.
Long story...

Around October 1, I got a call from my dear friend Ethan Prochnick, wondering if I'd like to come up to Dutch Harbor for "the easiest producing job on the show". That being "land producer" for the Discovery series, "Deadliest Catch". And, relatively speaking, he was being honest. But as my friend Lanny Sikes, who lived and worked in Juno for over a decade recently stated:

"Alaska is not for pussies...Life (is) so dangerous & vivid - not a lot of margin for errors. And so terribly beautiful."

Amen, Lanny.

Not So Great Escape- A Red King Crab makes a (fruitless) run for it.

The learning curve on this job has been, well, steep. Steep as a snow covered cliff-face capped by Bald Eagles defecating on your Gore-tex. I am a "Land Crab", a green-horn "Deadliest Catch" producer helping to round out stories and imagery on land for a show that takes place largely at sea. On my first day I was handed a camera and told to get out there and shoot a "meet and greet" between a one of our producer/shooter teams and their new captain. The producer was seasoned, the boat was new to the show, and I had no goddamned clue how to focus my brand new Sony Z5 HDV Cam. It was a sweaty few days.

Partners in Land Crab- Ben Murray, Casey Kusyk

And there's scant little mercy to go around, since the greater majority of our crew is out on boats in the Bering Sea, risking all, and I mean all, alongside some of the toughest laborers in the world: Bering Sea crab fishermen. Theirs- on both sides of the camera- is a brutal job, hard on the body, the head and, when in port, the liver. My job is actually a few jobs slapped over one another: behind the scenes when crew are in town, meeting boats, filming off-loads, chasing down on-land dramas (I say nothing here, watch season seven, my advice), filming b-roll- the worse the weather, the better, the more nautical the happier the folks back in Burbank.

It is, in fact, a great fucking job. I have gained a fluency in a range of camera technology most folks only drool over in camera mags, gotten the chance to work with some of the best, most insane reality shooter/producers in the business, had the monumental presence of the "terribly beautiful" topography of Alaska to toil in, and, last but not least, had it all in the one and only Dutch Harbor. Dutch is a great many things to a small, rarefied mix of people: a place rich in Aleut history, a contested battleground in WWII, a hard drinking palace of fast fortunes, a place to get lost in, a place to test your mettle, a place to get away, a place to work. Hard. Everybody in Dutch - from dockworkers to doctors to welders to processors- works very, very hard. It's a culture of creative survival and ingenuity. People up here have chops. When the Apocalypse comes, it's to Alaska I will run.

Lucky Lady herself, aboard her eponymous vessel, "Lucky Lady",
ready for land after 3 months at sea, fishing halibut.

I don't have a ton of time to shoot much of my own stuff, thanks to plenty of shooting needs for the show, but every once in a while, as the Kesslar "Pocket Dolly" is running a time-lapse, I wander around with my Nikon D700 and try to chronicle the stoic, strange beauty of this place. Long a fishing port, the narrow shorelines are marked by strange dumps of lines and nets, processing plants, fueling stations and potyards.

Alyeska Processing Plant, Dutch Harbor

The effect is both overwhelmingly industrial and uniquely hand-made. Massive plates of steel are coerced into shape, nudged into place and loaded with "gear" while nets and buoys and lines lie in forgotten storage, looking oddly toy-like and fanciful. At other times, say, the rare day when the weather is too nice for the show (Deadliest Catch has a very stormy aesthetic, blue skies don't cut it), I blast around the few roads Unalaska Island offers and explore.

Bunkhouses, East Point Rd., Dutch Harbor

Margaret's Bay, Dutch Harbor, looking toward Alyeska Processing

Unalaska

The town of Unalasaka, flanked by bays and lorded over by mountains, is the gateway to both sides of the island, and home to the bulk of both it's Aleut and military history.

The town of Unalaska, looking East

The surrounding tundra bears copious scars of bunkers and ancient civilizations alike while the coastline teems with rare Emperor Geese, Harlequin Ducks, sea otters, seals, sea lions, and, of course, Bald Eagles; the land and culture vibrates with history, human, geologic and biologic.

An immature Bald Eagle tears into frozen cod, foraged from a boat.

And, so, without further ado, the opening salvo of my time on Dutch; a glimpse of a profoundly gorgeous, ever changing, unrelentingly unapologetic place. To date, I have never encountered a more dramatic, more alive, more austere and more intimidatingly beautiful landscape. Much more to come...

AP Ben Murray- a man of dry wit and lethal asides, on Ballyhoo Hill

Basalt ridge, Summer's Bay

Moonrise over Unalaska Bay

Dashboard and Finger- (Tribute to Mark Rothko)

2010-09-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

Maine. 7-2010. IPhone Series

Maine By IPhone

2010-09-30T11:57:00.001-07:00

Volcano And Plane Wing

2010-09-30T11:54:00.001-07:00

Passing the Cascades- 7-2010. IPhone Series

All Who Line Up Are Not Sheep, Pt. One and Pt. Two

2010-09-28T15:35:00.000-07:00

Sunset & PCH, 8 am (9-28-10) - IPhone Series

102 in The Valley

2010-09-28T15:33:00.001-07:00

Carol and Milo's Pool (9-26-10) - IPhone Series

A The Gate (9-17-10)

2010-09-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

En route to Igor- IPhone Series

Chasing Igor

2010-09-23T18:04:00.000-07:00

It’s 4:30 am, Sunday morning. September 19, and my surfing sensei, John-O, is singing loudly. I’m still shaking off a very good dream or visions of last night's lobster, courtesy of Arthur and Heidi - John-O's step-father and mother, respectively- and the singing is getting on my nerves. Alas, in one hour the sun will be up and swells from Hurricane Igor will be slamming the coast of New England. Waves make sensei very happy and when sensei happy, sensei sings.

We lash the boards to the roof of the rental car- a flagrant violation of the rental contract- and pull out of his family’s driveway at 5:10, headlights ablaze through winding back-roads under a canopy of huge maples, elms and oaks, flanked by ancient stone walls, bound for heavy water.

“Carrot?”, John-O sings, “apple?”. A mad look in his eyes lets me know he’s already surfing something somewhere as cedar shake homes rip past in the dark.

I wave off the fruit and veggies. Visions of Dunkin’ Donuts’ coffee and glazed crullers drift through my mind. It’s too damn early for carrots. The day before, we had taken a leisurely, midday jaunt in his stepfather Arthur’s gorgeous 28 foot Fortier boat, the “Lagniappe” (which aptly means, “something given or obtained gratuitously or by way of good measure”).

"Sensei" John-O loads the Lagniappe.

We trolled the local islands and cobble channels for striped bass and bluefish, all the while keeping our eyes peeled for distant breakers where, under normal conditions, none would appear, seeking indicators of Igor’s arrival. An hour into our fishing trip, we pulled up outside a narrow channel breaking left and right heavy enough to give local boatmen pause to reconsider. John-O's eyes rolled back in his head. Arthur gamely hung outside, eating his sandwich and downing a beer while John-O made easy work of the solid left ripping through the channel on his quad fish. I managed to drop into a few myself before getting dragged into the impact zone and spanked. I then managed to burn off all remaining pride clawing my way back to Arthur and the good fortune of Lagniappe.

Off an island not near you, John-O spots breakers in the channel...

...and makes for the water.

But today was a different deal. We hit the first break by 6 a.m., the parking lot alive with the sound of boards being waxed and wetsuits being zipped. Along the bluff the silhouettes of surfers in hoodies stare out at the incoming swell as the line-up is calculated, the paddle out assessed. Igor is pounding the bluff with 6-10 foot sets wrapping around the point from the south. It’s a very impressive sight anywhere, but here in New England, it’s a downright revelation.

Solid sets- 6-10 feet- wrap around the local lighthouse. 6 am.

Local bears, stirred from slumbers, prep for the paddle out.

We’re back in the car, in search of more and less at the same time- more breaks, less people. This pattern continues over the next few days, as Igor jacks up, registering at some breaks like small houses12- 15 feet high, or weighing in lean and mean at others, 6-8 feet and breaking fast. At these more intimidating spots, I feel my manhood retreat, leave my board on the car, pull out my camera and stare like the rest of the civilians. Standing on the lawns of families not yet stirring or in front of working class Irish pubs still sleeping off the night before, I bust out my Nikon D700 with a very old 200mm zoom and even older 2x converter and take a whack at documenting this southeast swell and these unheralded breaks (that shall remain, for want of staying alive, nameless).

Too big and too fast, but otherwise perfect. 8-10 foot sets, steady offshore winds, lefts and rights for days.

Unknown local at an undisclosed break makes the drop into a very fast 10' barrel.

John Wingate- Dropping in.

Geo Quiz: The ferry is going where?

7 am. A local surveys the lineup.

Casual under pressure, a local tucks in.

Up...

..but not over.

The working class before clocking in.

8 am. Sunday. The Dawn Patrol Checks Out.

In a crowded parking lot, seasoned local shows up California style...

...Inside and out. On Monday, that same local was spotted ripping into several overhead lefts and rights.

A fast right past the rocks, somewhere below the mansions of Newport.

Monday, September 20th, our last day. Tomorrow, we'll be back in Southern California, to a very flat sea. After a surfing and shooting a stellar dawn session 40 minutes to the south, we stand on the bluffs of this remote Rhode Island rivermouth, and watch it all go off, big, chunky and steady. 12-15 foots sets pound the rocky shore all day long while the winds blow strong offshore, holding all but the strongest paddlers off the wave. The two riders below had the joint wired, and dropped into most of the heaviest bombs.

Goodbye New England, local style:

Brigid Redux

2010-09-17T20:23:00.001-07:00

Brigid Ryan, at "7 Grand"- IPhone Series

Wave Report: Flat 9-10-2010

2010-09-17T20:17:00.001-07:00

John Wingate, San Clemente. IPhone Series

A Hotel Beside A Rental Lot. Boston, 9-17-2010

2010-09-17T20:10:00.000-07:00

Embassy Hotel, Boston. IPhone Series

Ankle High And Sharky in San Onofre

2010-09-16T12:31:00.000-07:00

The bluffs

There are few things you don't do when you're out on the water. One of them is bleed, if you can at all help it, and another is talk on and on about sharks. They're out there whether you talk of them or not, and, as any Mexican fisherman will tell you, talking about the "man in the grey suit" is just asking for trouble. Best to enjoy the day and keep your mind on the matter at hand, in this case, catching waves. Even small waves demand a little respect.

John-O goes left.

So there we were, my friends, Slatty and John-O, enjoying a perfectly good sunset session in small-ish surf, when they started going and on about a video they'd recently seen, shot precisely where we were surfing. In the video, a paddle-boarder dunks his paddle-mounted camera one foot down into the jade waters off San Onofre, and past him swims a young, 1o foot great white shark. A "juvenile", they call it. Having once been a juvenile myself, I know what havoc they can wreak. Add the teeth, and you've got a potential situation on your hands. Anyway, the video yields a sobering moment, due largely to the fact that the scene above water is sunny and idyllic, much like the day we were now enjoying. Until then.

A pod of Bottlenose Dolphin in natures petting zoo

"You shouldn't be talking about this shit. You're gonna curse us," I said, and paddled off, focusing on the choppy swell approaching, hoping one would deliver me from the bad ju-ju of shark talk. Of course, I didn't get a wave, they did. Both of them gliding out of sight all the way to shore. And the sun was sinking like a stone, lower and lower, my only thought, "Sharks feed at dusk."

Slatty slides right

So, as darkness beat the sun to a salmon-pink sliver, I thought back over this humble day of surfing, our arrival at the bluff and subsequent trek down the steep trail at 7 am...

John-O and Slatty, eye-balling from above

....a small handful of surfers spread out along the line-up, the cobble beach breaks lighting up with waist high peelers in all directions. Paradise. Not perfect conditions, but paradise, none-the-less.

Dirt Stairway to Heaven

"If this is how I go", I reckoned, "it's still better than most."

Just then, a little wind-blown bump reared up from the west, and lifted my trusty 9'6" through the gloom to shore, where the two Johns were waiting, boards under their arms. Limping over the cobbles, smiling stupidly, I raised my fist, claiming the dribbling 2 foot wave that had borne me home. Slatty, unimpressed, glanced over my shoulder and said, "Did you see the shark?"

"You're full of shit," I barked.

"Nope. Seriously. Dorsal about 8 inches high. Shot right past me, out toward you. Not too big, but big enough."

We all turned toward the sea, blue black dark.

The world is created in words, someone said, and I rest my case.

Reinvention In Water

2010-09-07T16:41:00.000-07:00

Been plundering archives from 2007 and 2008 today, and realized my wife would be an incredible muse, if only she'd stop trying to grab the camera from me. Such is life when you marry a writer/director. Still, these images, shot at a very talented friend's pool reminded me of the transformational effect water has on both human form and behavior. Cool, I think, how we re-imagine ourselves when we're both swaddled and weightless in water. And though the terrain has been explored with staggering success by folks like Mark Mawson, I'm thinking today that I just might have to revisit this project, just to say I was there...

Ascension- 2007

Descension - 2007

Maine, Pt. Two- Deadfall and Light

2010-09-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

Downed Fir, Lying In-State. Maine. August, 2010

A few years back, the aforementioned island up in Penobscott Bay endured a savage hurricane- along with the rest of the east coast- toppling many of the fir trees crowding the woods, their roots shallow, thwarted from deeper purchase by granite bedrock. Last week, while hiking the island, I walked past a dead fir in the process of being absorbed by a Pollock- esque explosion of mosses and lichens. The tree was lying in-state, resplendent in soft green, yellow and orange splashes of fungus, both gaudy and somber. I rolled around in the moss with my Nikon for what seemed like hours, trying to make formal, painterly "non-landscape" landscapes, but mostly having fun, the city slowly seeping from my bones and brain, the damp fecund smell of the woods drawing me in...

Maine, Pt. One: Full Moon Over Penobscott Bay

2010-09-02T14:04:00.000-07:00

The Big House- Maine, August 2010

I just returned from vacation with my wife and in-laws on an island off the coast of Maine. As a surfer, I'm loathe to talk about great places that few people know about, so I'll skip names here. The coast of Maine is a labyrinth of inlets and islands and the island in question was bought by a family back in the 1800's and became the summer home and wellspring of not one but two, now famous, 20th Century artists.

To this day, the place is essentially unchanged; water is pumped into the house via a well 30 yards away, no heat except for the fireplace in the great room, electricity is scarce thanks to a single solar panel and fickle Maine weather, and hot water is generated in the same manner as all cooking: on an old wood stove in the changeless kitchen. Bedrooms are located at either end of the "Big House" and the center of the building is a vast, open great room, it's ceiling adorned with dragons, painted by the talented father of the talented artists some 100 years ago. A “momma” dragon stares down from one wall, three baby dragons upon her back, and the papa dragon keeps an eye out on the opposite wall. Off the front and back of the house are two long porches. The back porch is more of a work porch and the painters and sculptors in our group congregate there to work after coffee and wood-oven baked breads. Everyone in this group can cook, it turns out.

How I ended up there is a matter of pure luck. I have the good fortune of being married to the lovely and talented Sian Heder, whose godfather, the wonderful painter Joel Janowitz was invited to stay on the island some 15 years ago, and he now extends his fine fortune to his coterie of old friends and artists, including my intimidatingly talented parents-in-law and sister-in-law.

During the day, the collective divides its time between creating art, making meals and exploring the coast and inland trails around the island. Great meals are improvised, tiny coves plundered by kayaks, moss covered paths are ascended to granite summits, and bodies steel themselves for freezing dips in icy waters.

Evening meals, largely planned but always collaborative, take place at the huge fir table on the front porch overlooking Penobscott Bay. Usually raucous affairs conducted by 12 or more highly opinionated people, interrupted by the soulful calls of loons and the last of the evening light firing up over the water, dinner takes the day into night. Dish teams boil water and tackle the ancient china, fires bloom in the great room, books crack open, teams are divided up for games of "Celebrity" and people launch themselves into vibrant displays of jack-assery all in pursuit of victory.

At night, the world come largely to a standstill. The loons keep up for a while but then go quiet, buoys clang, and the small family of island deer crunch and snort in the dark before settling down in the tall grass. On our last night, after everyone went to bed, I wrestled with my own inability to shoot all week by taking a stroll with my Nikon under the nearly full-moon. I circled the house, stalked it, and sat on the huge screened-in porch, squinting in the dark. As my eyes adjusted, the pale blue light of the moonlight revealed itself, intersecting with the amber light of the lamps on the dining room table. These images- shot at ISO 800, F.11 in 3-minute exposures, were what I came away with.

Lamplight and Full Moon. August, 2010

Moonlight on Penobscott Bay. August, 2010

Hammock. August, 2010

Screen-door and Moonlight. August, 2010

Family Meals. August, 2010

"Gone"- A Teaser

2010-08-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

"Gone" is a work in progress about the fastest eroding land mass in the world: Southern Louisiana. A place of profound cultural importance, an estuary that feeds millions and yet also the victim of it's own rampant development, local and federal politics and the siren song of Big Oil. While the BP spill dominated the public eye, the ongoing story of a vital, delicate part of the world remains untold....

A Brief Tour of The Gulf- A Work In Progress

2010-06-28T14:19:00.000-07:00

Sign at Fishing Camp, Chauvin, Terebone Parish, Louisiana

7 Weeks into the spill, Tadd Sackville-West and I jumped on planes to learn what we could about life in in the Delta- human and otherwise. We had no agenda, and few contacts, but we found our way out into some 50 miles of impacted wetlands, interviewed government and non-government workers, and came away with a moving snapshot of the massive impact the spill is having on this delicate, complex region. These images are a record of some of things we saw, the people we met, and the beginning of a story that's just begun to unfold. The captions should orient you some, but the truth is, the story of the Delta, it's people and the history of Big Oil in the region is so layered and so big, that I don't dare suggest that we got close to covering it all...

Dawn- Myrtle Grove Marina, Plaquemines Parish.

Shrimp boats, airboats and sport-fishing outfits await hire by either private news outfits or oil cleanup. The bay, along with most in Louisiana, is closed to fishing.

Barataria Bay, Plaquemines Parish, LA.

Tadd shoots what is easily one of the most beautiful places in the US. A delicate, vast collision of wetlands, big sky and teeming wildlife. Sadly, the oil in this image is so prevalent we could see no un-impacted cane for miles. Absorption boom staked in the shallow water surrounds a blackened wetland as far as the eye can see.

"Any other day, this would be a perfect day for fishing, ya know... I mean, this is the kind of day you dream about..."- Robert Beck

Emulsifed oil pools heavily on either side of absorption booms-Barataria Bay, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

PVC stakes show the high-oil line, easily lapping over the barriers.

Absorption Boom and Impacted Wetland- Barataria Bay, Plaquemines Parish.

Seven layers of oil soaked containment boom float in viscous waters.

"I was just here last week. Everything seemed ok. Man, it just got clobbered. It's done."
- Photographer Bill Campbell.

Shrimp boat Skimming Oil-Barataria Bay, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

A shrimp fisherman skims the surface with a containment boom, oil clinging to his hull, the water around us brown and shimmering. The smell hits you as you enter the impacted zones...Louisiana "Sweet" Crude. What you don't smell, however, poses significant threat as well. While recent rumors of airborne toxins have been deemed unscientific by some environmental engineers, other undisputed elements such as hydrogen sulfide are already being reported at much higher levels than safe around Plaquemines Parish.

The shrimp fisherman scrubs his outriggers best he can, wary of the toxicity of the crude. His hull will go through rigorous cleaning at stations set up all across the Delta, but it's an impossible task, and the oil penetrates where the wind and current will take it.

Water World. Plaquemines Parish, Baratrain Bay

Oil clean up, overseen by a company drolly called "Oil Mop, Inc", is big business.
The two employees who took us on a tour into the Dennis Pass Wildlife area confirmed that they hadn't been allowed one day off since the spill began.

"Too much money to be made, man, too much money."

- OMI employee Merril Schmaltz.

Barataria Bay, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

An airboat, piloted by a local fisherman, loads up with absorbtion boom from the loading platform of an ad-hoc station, miles out in the Plaquemines Parish wetlands.

Aaron Viles (w daughter)- Campaign Director for The Gulf Restoration Network.

Aaron's organization, The Gulf Restoration Network has been involved in the issues facing Gulf restoration long prior to the spill. With the spill well into it's 3rd month, the network now sees it's task having ramifications far beyond the Gulf itself.

The Last Shrimp- Chavin, Terrebone Parish, LA.

Dale Dufrene talks with Tadd Sackville-West about the generations of fishing camps along the Chauvin canal.

The Last Pot of Crabs- Chauvin, Terrebone Parish, LA

Workers repair torn absorption boom. Chauvin, LA

Chauvin, Terrebone Parish, LA

Unemployed fisherman Mike McWilliams takes us on a tour of impacted wetlands. Mike, like most commercial fishermen in the Delta, have been re-deployed as guides for press and boom containment details.

Chauvin. Terrebone Parish, LA

Airboat captains retrieve torn absorption boom from the cane grass and drag them back out to crews attempting to repair the line. Of the 5 or so boats we approached to interview, all but one turned us away.

When we asked why, our airboat pilot replied, "Everybody works for BP now. They need the work."

Still, there were many who wanted to talk about things, and did so without much prodding. This is a world of watermen, and the spill cuts to the heart of the culture.

Coast Guard Public Relations Officer John Miller

We were John's second tour that day. He was patient and conversant in the scalding heat, offering us the lowdown on the containment and absorption boom operations in the area. He had both high praise for the cleanup effort being conducted by all in the gulf, and concessions toward the overwhelming task at hand.

"We just don't really know anything (about what the future holds). All we can do is keep trying to do our best."

Edwin Roam- 47 year fish-camp owner, Chauvin, Terrebone Parish, LA.

A good sense of humor seemed to be getting them all through. When asked why he seemed so much younger than his age, Roam replied, "...dunno. Living right by doing everything wrong, I guess."

Chauvin. Fishing Camps. Empty.

Sandbag Barrier Operations- Ft. Jackson Landfill

Tadd shoots the sandbag operations. Note workers beneath those bags. And, a true Chinook will move 2 x's that amount.

National Guardmen Malcom Moses and Julian Candilore- Sand Bag Operations, Ft. Jackson

Moses- a retired Marine with two tours in Iraq- and his team are in charge of communications between all helicopters cycling sand out to the barriers.

"What do I miss most (after 7 weeks of solid duty in the gulf)? I miss my Tennessee Walker (horses), I guess."

PVC Julian Candilore- Barrier detail, Ft. Jackson, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Malcom Moses, and PFC Julian Candilore oversee communications between helicopters for the barrier islands sandbag operations.

Julian- "We've been on this detail since it all started. I guess about 6 weeks. The heat's not too bad. We're all from Louisiana. I guess I'd rather not be working from a landfill, but otherwise..."

Press Clearance- Ft. Jackson Bird Rescue Center

Tadd Sackville-West lines awaits clearance with the rest of the press corps outside the Ft. Jackson International Bird Rescue Center down in Ft. Jackson, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Ft. Jackson Bird Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Workers work in two's and threes, stabilizing birds, rubbing them down with "Dawn" dishwashing detergent, and rinse them again.

Oil-Soaked Brown Pelicans-Ft. Jackson Bird Rescue and Rehabilitation Center, Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.

Just some of the now 600 heavily oiled Brown Pelicans being processed for rehabilitation at the center. Staffers at the center, along with most of the Fish and Wildlife folks we met, were cautiously hopeful that the impacted birds might experience a better than average survival rate due to the long distance the oil had traveled prior to hitting the wetlands. Long exposure to sun and water, they theorized, would diminish the toxic quality of the oil. However, the long term effects that the massive amounts of oil, benzene, methelyne chloride and hydrogen sulfide spewing into the rookeries and estuaries are beyond anyone's guess at this point.

Rescue Center Director Jay Holcomb Meets the Press

Holcomb explains the rescue procedure for the endangered Brown Pelicans rescued from the contaminated wetlands of Plaquemines Parish and other rookeries in the Delta. Most of the birds undergo a period of examination- 5-7 days- prior to release in less impacted wetlands near Texas and Florida.

Oil Containment Operations on the Mississippi -Venice, Louisiana

All boats involved in cleanup must be quarantined and steam cleaned prior in inland passage.

"Only reason you're gettin' this close is 'cause of us. We're like the cops around here."

- Jessie Coffman, OMI employee.

OMI employee Merril Schmaltz. Dennis Pass National Wildlife Refuge, Venice, Louisiana.

"We got these boots cause the ones they give us are too hot, man. We like these cause they're cooler and, well, face it, they look good."

OMI ("Oil Mop, LLC") employees Jessie Coffman (seated) and Merril Schmaltz (captain),

OMI has been hired to shuttle all press and wildlife workers dealing with contaminated birds between the Cypress Grove Marina and Dennis Pass Wildlife Refuge and rookeries .

Jessie- "How come nobody talks to us. Everybody's worried about the fisherman, but no one cares about us. We ain't had a day off since the spill began. I got a six month old baby, I ain't seen in 7 weeks."

Me- "You want to talk in an interview?"

Jessie-"Hell no. I need my job."

Chris Guy-Fish and Wildlife Operations Director, living at the Dennis Pass Barge since The Spill, week one.

We interviewed Chris out at the barge, some 40 minutes by boat from the press staging area at Cypress Cove in Venice, Louisiana. Chris was in charge of coordinating the teams (and embedded press) keeping an eye on the birds in the vast wetlands fanning out from Dennis Pass- some 100 square miles worth.
At that time, he was optimistic about the birds' recovery rates, but no-one knew then, or knows now, how the phenomenal event going on one mile below the surface will impact the Delta. Still, he bristled at the notion that it was all a show for the press, or that the press was being kept out of the most impacted areas.

"If we're keeping boats out of a rookery it's because we're concerned about the nesting bird, it's not to cover our butts. Ya, know...I've dedicated my life to protecting wildlife, it's a little insulting to (read in the press) I'm suddenly running for office."

Absorption booms-Dennis Pass National Wildlife Refuge Staging Area, Venice, Louisiana .

Miles and miles of them, staged throughout the region, loaded onto the decks of shrimp boats, oyster-boats and crab-boats, ready to be deployed along the borders of impacted wetland. Boom operations, from absorption to containment, pom-pom to burnable, are keeping thousands people busy around the clock. And there is controversy- as with the dispersant, the bulk of the booms used are owned or overseen by BP, and are, of course, synthetic (petrol based). Lisa Gautier and her organization, "Matter of Trust" have proven that booms made from human hair are both more absorbent and sit lower in the water. BP's R&D' department was a fan of Gautier's booms, but somehow they never adopted them.

The bigger question is, of course, whether or not such efforts can even hope to make a dent over the long haul. But the one thing remains clear, a lot of people are working extremely hard, day and night, hoping to make a difference. Standing around in a boat with a camera, it's tough to be hopeful, but even harder to criticize.

As I said, a work in progress, maybe some things you won't see on TV or read in the press- stories of a culture of watermen who's lives have been as connected to the water as to the air they breathe for generations, and the ecosystem that sustained not only them but the vast majority of the fish, birds and mammals of the Gulf for millions of years. Unfortunately, the only thing that is clear is that the effects of this event have only just begun to reveal themselves.

David Newsom Photography Featured in "Through The Lens"

2010-06-09T19:46:00.000-07:00

Very honored to be featured this week in Kate Pollard's excellent blog "Through-The-Lens"...
...including writings and images chronicling the strange, harrowing journey of my dad's mysterious descent into illness, exhaustion, and the past; all there in the confines of his condo down in Florida, where the jungle outside still has teeth.

Florida- One Year Later...

2010-05-21T09:58:00.000-07:00

Nearly one year later to the day, my father, Lloyd C Newsom, seems to have returned from, well, another plane of existence. Thanks in no small part to the steady encouragement and presence of my sister (along with frequent visits by my brother Jeffrey and I), the tireless work of doctors, occupational and physical therapists and my father's own steel-will to survive, he's now walking, talking and functioning more or less on his own. He turns 87 this year.

The one thing he's no longer doing is playing tennis, his life-long love. Down at Sea Oaks, the tennis community he's wintered in for 18 years, he used to be a game organizer, avid singles and doubles player, and general cheerleader for the courts. Now, after a brief, nearly deadly attempt to return to form a few months ago, my dad's put his raquets in the closet. This time of year, the courts, as well as most of the community, are silent. The snow-birds have flown back to New York, New Jersey, Connecticut or wherever and the Sea Oaks feels like an abandoned film set...

Sadly, his common-law wife of 15 years, Jean, has been all but lost to him. Jean was moved back to her home in New Jersey while dad was hospitalized for the second time last year. Between Jean's Alzheimer's and dad's collapse, my sister and I found ourselves thoroughly out-gunned at the time, and had to make a tough decision. Friends in New Jersey oversaw Jean's return and subsequent treatment for Alzheimer's, but the truth is they, as well as Jean, have also had a terrible time of it.

When I first visited, about 9 years back, dad and Jean liked to show off the pool. They'd return from the court, don their bathing suits, stroll in the balm under the canopy of sea oaks to the that glittering gem - immaculate, unattended - and read magazines.

Now, of course, Jean is elsewhere. Dad misses her every day. He remembers little of last year. To him, he awoke and she was gone. Today, it's all about the daily routines of meals, pills, exercise, reading and, of course, doctors...

My dad was a salesman his whole adult life. After returning from the war and settling into his troubled marriage with my mom, he landed a job hawking lightbulbs for General Electric. Then he sold "Keyhoe Plans", then tax shelters and finally, later in life, stocks and bonds. He was always on the phone, always making the call, always hammering away at the next sale, making the next contact. To this day, he keeps virtually the same old, stained and dog-eared set of contact cards- from his now defunct Rolodex - on his desk.

The point being, this guy knows how to keep pushing.

May 21, 2010

2010-03-13T18:27:00.000-08:00

"Photography For Social Change" Silent Auction At Stephen Cohen Gallery

2010-01-14T16:16:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to invite anyone who's in LA on February 20th to come over to Stephen Cohen Gallery for the "Photography For Social Change Silent Auction".

The auction will feature a hefty handful of world-renowned photographers as well locals like yours truly, all assembled to benefit Julia Dean's critically important, "Child Labor Project"

From the site:

"The auction will benefit Project 5: Photography for Social Change, which supports talented photojournalists and builds documentary photography through grants, exhibits and publications.

Project 5's silent auctions will raise money for a five-year series of photo documentary projects on five pressing social issues: child labor, educational access, health care, immigration, economic globalization. The February 2010 auction will raise funds to complete Dean's current collaborative project, Child Labor and the Global Village.

'Photographers look through their lenses at society and the environment, but they also see through their hearts,' says Dean, the Los Angeles documentary photographer who founded Project 5. 'As the economy takes a toll on the traditional patrons of documentary photography, such as newspapers and magazines, new support is needed. We must not lose a generation of important stories.'"

Saturday, Feb 20th

7-11 pm

Stephen Cohen Gallery

7358 Beverly Blvd.

Los Angeles, CA 90036

"Photographing Family" - in Too Much Chocolate

2009-10-25T14:22:00.000-07:00

LA Based Photographer, writer and curator Aline Smithson has curated a very moving piece for "Too Much Chocolate Magazine", titled "Photographing Family".

The piece includes work by myself, along with the very brilliant Phillip Toledano, Doug DuBois, Elizabeth Flemming, Jack Radcliffe, Timothy Archibald, Tierney Gearon, and Dona Schwartz.

Austin "SunFlowers" Project in "GOOD MAGAZINE"

2009-08-10T22:18:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had the good fortune to find myself down in Austin. It wasn't too hot, the place I was staying had a pool, and I was working with the sublimely gifted public art duo "Harries/Heder Collaborative".

Never mind that they're my soon-to-be in-laws, their work is always visionary, smart and, in this case, lights up at night.

"SunFlowers", 15, 12' tall solar "flowers" that feed back into the grid by day and glow like alien flowers at night, had it's debut last week, and "GOOD Magazine" published a great little feature on the installation, featuring pix by yours truly, today.

Here are a few more from the shoot:

"SKIP" Goes into Second Printing & A "Thank You" to This Community

2009-07-11T14:30:00.000-07:00

"A small, good thing...", someone once said. Last week, SKIP went into it's second printing over at Perceval Press. For those of you who have been asking for copies, they are now again available through Perceval and through David Newsom Photography.

Also, a word to those who've been keeping tabs on the story of my dad and his common-law wife, Jean: My family and I wanted to thank you for your support, good vibes and salient thoughts. Navigating elder-care is a dirty secret in our culture, and most families are hit with all it's awesome responsibilities like a tsunami. Our personal story, while difficult, often surreal, and heavy with grace, is not unusual, and it has caused me to ponder the power, or lack thereof, of these cyber communities. So, as we go forward, I'll be posting images, stories and words, as well as useful links, because I have to believe that this technology is actually working, that it is up to something more than providing cheap entertainment and the best deals on new stuff.

Stay tuned...

In the meantime, keep a good thought for dad and Jean and all the other folks who've been master of their lives - decade after decade - and are now contending with the process of handing power over to strangers, the next generation, and the unknown. It's not for sissies.

Night on The Indian River

2009-06-02T08:17:00.000-07:00

Behind my dad's condo here in Vero Beach runs the Indian River. By day, the Indian River is a superhighway for both humans and wildlife. At night, however, it's as tranquil as a monastery. After a long day spent dealing with our family situation, I wandered out through the jungle to an old dock and experimented with some time exposures using the D700. These were shot looking west, toward the mainland. Each shot was about 8 minutes, at ISO 200.

I suspect the process was more profound than the results. As I was shooting, a mother Barred owl took her 2 chicks out for hunting lessons, "hooting" back and forth from the telephone line beside the dock, and a large pod of porpoise passed by, their exhales echoing across the water, so clear in the still night they sounded like they were whispering in my ear.

Technically, the D700 did an OK job. I found a lot of "hot" pixels, which may be a result of long time exposures on the Nikon sensor. Also, I got more barrel distortion with this Nikon 17-35/ 2.8 lens than I would have liked. I'll have to look into that. But, you know, spiritually, it was a complete success.

DN

2009-05-25T07:51:00.000-07:00

My sister and I answered an SOS from my dad about a month ago. His wife of 16 years was struggling with memory issues and he needed help getting from Florida back up to their house in New Jersey. He sounded anxious. We got to Vero Beach, Florida 3 weeks ago...

Jean Baker & "Buck" Newsom 5/2009

Vero Beach, Florida lies along a narrow strip of land, flanked on one side by the Atlantic ocean, and on the other, by the Indian River. Once a vital, teeming estuary for fish, birds and copious other wildlife, it has since surrendered much of it's wilderness to gated communities harboring well-heeled snowbirds. But, to paraphrase William McDonough, whenever Nature is given a chance to take root, it does so magnificently. The trees surrounding my dad and step mom's condo here in the Sea Oaks gated community chatter with life. Tree frogs, geckos, green anoles, crested anoles, song-birds, butterflies, cicadas all trade shifts, keeping the racket up 24/7. Literally next door, a 300 acre reserve is as vibrant today as it was 200 years ago. Florida panthers, chimeras from a wilder time, cross paths with hikers, barred owls stare down from daytime roosts awaiting night hunts, and shy gopher tortoises dive down burrows, trying to avoid the locals, who eat them.

Into the Reserve 5/2009

A short boat ride on the Indian River brings you face to face with manatees, porpoise, mullet leaping to avoid becoming meals for Redfish, flocks of black and white Ibis, herons fishing from every low branch and pairs of Osprey warily circling nests. Most of this is only of passing interest to my dad and his gal, two Snowbirds who've made Florida their winter retreat for 15 years. Yes, they're older now, both dealing with their own varieties of mental illness, but even in their younger days they were always pretty content focusing on tennis, sitting pool-side, and having dinners across the highway at the club.

Jean Baker

"Buck" Newsom 5/2009

My sister, Ginny, and I showed up here 3 weeks ago, thinking we were going to be moving them up to New Jersey for summer. But 5 nights ago, my dad, who'd been struggling to keep everything together suffered a major emotional breakdown, and had to be hospitalized. He's home now, but his mental health careens wildly from one moment to the next. Jean struggles to pitch in, but her Alzheimer's makes the process complicated- a non-stop "Groundhog Day" in which her reality needs to be constantly updated, and the decline of her mate puzzles her.

Jean, the night dad stayed in the hospital

Anyway, in the rare moments when I can shoot, I do. While I haven't bothered to chronicle the wildlife, I have been using the time to record the late night vigils between my sister, Jean and myself as we've had to get dad into and out of hospitals, do the delicate dance with medications, and find our way through this time of family crisis and connection.

Ginny & Beer.

"Buck" Newsom.

Also, in an odd twist, it turns out one of my best friends from high school lives 10 miles up the road, where the land is so narrow you could almost heave a rock from the ocean to the river. Matty has been a livesaver, picking us up on the river, taking us out in the boat, providing us a glimpse of the teeming wilderness carrying on around us while we humans work through our little dramas.

Ginny and Matty, on the Indian River, somewhere near Vero Beach

The Art of Relating- A Benefit for the Relational Center of Los Angeles

2009-04-12T00:13:00.000-07:00

Save the date, folks-

I'm very proud to be one of 7 artists to be featured in the benefit for the "Relational Center", a non-profit mental health center dedicated to serving minorities and underserved communities in Los Angeles.

Details-
May 2, 2009.
6pm to 10 pm
Melrose Lightspace
7600 Melrose Ave (@ Curson)
www.relationalcenter.org/events.html

SKIP Collaboration- "To Hear From There"

2009-03-14T13:01:00.000-07:00

So, a little while back, I got an inquiry from a woman named Holly Christie about one of my pieces, "Blue Truck". Turns out she'd been looking over Perceval Press' web site, and she'd come across my book SKIP.

Anyway, she liked it, bought it, and we struck up a dialogue. As fate would have it, Ms. Christie is a singer/songwriter. One year later, thanks to the seemingly infinite generosity of the folks at Perceval Press, Ms. Christie has released a small collection of beautifully produced songs, inspired by SKIP, titled, "To Hear From There".

It's kind of amazing. Most times, we put these things out there and they're met with silence, sometimes a nod. But, man, when they inspire others to take the painstaking journey that, say, producing an EP requires, well, you've gotta feel good.

So, check it out, Holly Christie's TO HEAR FROM THERE- SONGS FOR THE BOOK SKIP.

Night Crawling...

2009-02-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

When I read Toby Barlow's hip and vicious first novel, SHARP TEETH, I fell in love with his version of LA as much as his bloody werewolf/love saga. The LA of SHARP TEETH is more the stuff of literary collisions than pop horror. Part Chandler, Chavez Ravine and Mike Davis. It's an LA of unpopulated streets, lost neighborhoods and dry brush bordering cracked concrete. A shadowy stage for the violent doings of the book's feral gangs. So, I began to shoot pictures in pursuit of this LA. We did a show together, last April, over at Lost&Found Gallery in Hollywood, which got the ball rolling...

...Since then, I've begun a tour of the LA that carries on indifferent, perhaps even hostile to, the self-obsessed culture jockeying for exposure under the "HOLLYWOOD" sign. The whole venture smacks of a very particular kind of voyeurism, and often finds me standing in pitch black alleys at 3 am, waiting for something to resolve, standing on rooftops staring into windows or listening outside hulking factory walls as steam rises overhead. It's a journey of uncertain destination, but the LA that I'm finding on these late night sojourns is beautiful to me, a Hopper-esque universe of desolation, history and hallucinatory luminosity.

In his series of gorgeous silver gelatin prints, NIGHT WALK, Henry Wessel explores a sleeping LA of bungalows and Tim Burton shadows. So I suppose one could call this work the LA of Lycanthopes (and other altered-states) and late-shifts.

David Newsom Photography @ RoseArk Gallery

2009-02-21T16:00:00.000-08:00

RoseArk Presents: FOUNTAINHEAD

David Newsom
Cass Bird
Brantley Gutierrez
Jackamo
Sye Williams

Show Closes April 15th
1111 W. Crescent Heights Blvd
West Hollywood, CA