Now that announcements have been officially made and photographs on Dustin's website have been updated I can post an image I've been sitting on since the day we shot it. The same day of Dustin's Words photo shoot we shot for his up and coming Bag of Bones tour. Since his tour has a man-on-his-own-playing-guitar-on-the-road-vagabond sort of feel to it, we shot aiming for that same concept. Dustin, being the good sport that he is, rolled around in a dirt pile before the shoot and stared right into the sun several times over for me. As rigs flew by us and commuters wondered what the hell two guys are doing standing practically in the median of an interstate during rush hour in the middle of Texas June temperatures, we shot pictures hoping for something that seemed rugged and epic and movie poster cool. I think we nailed it.
If you want your very own copy of this photograph you can go to www.dustinperkinsmusic.com and click on the link to help support Dustin on the Bag of Bones Tour. A donation of $5 or more gets you a postcard from wherever he's at on the road. The tour doesn't start 'til August 22nd, so don't forget. In fact, set a reminder on your phone now and get Dustin to his next gig. A big thank you to Dustin and producer Greg White for letting me be so involved on this album and tour. It's been-and still is-a blast.
Before I grow old and die I have one thing I really want to see happen as it pertains to my photos: I want to have a gallery show featuring all the images I've taken of Louisiana. If you know me at all then you know that I've been hunting for a publisher of a book I've been working on for the past seven or eight years based solely on my growing up in Livingston Parish. Yeah, I'm sure I've mentioned it a time or two here. The images I've captured over the years of that region also have their share of "outtakes" on the roll of film that accompany the ones set aside specifically for Livingston, these are just random shots of the state that I've taken over the years. In fact, the Livingston project began with a much broader theme in mind-the entire state of Louisiana herself-and so in the beginning I was stopping on the side of the road all the time. Early on I realized that it was much to massive of a project to get done in any sort of timely (I'm using the word rather loosely) manner and that if I ever intended on actually finishing a project I should narrow my scope. Which I did, focusing on just one parish. As an afterthought though the "big picture" of capturing the state at large isn't such a bad idea. In fact, I'm still pretty sure it is one I intend on tackling. The only difference is now I have the knowledge and the patience to understand that like a woman, it will take years to truly capture all the beauty and secrets and intrigue and history that the state embodies. I'm okay with that now as I realize that I've still many years ahead of me and rest in the simple fact that getting out there and taking pictures five, ten, twenty, thirty years from now is still exciting. All of this is to introduce this photograph, what may be the beginning of truly lifelong ambition.
