John Clifton Stewart, Jr. embraces trucker-turned-pastor Oran Moses after being baptized in Lavaca Bay, while Marker 48 Fellowship members applaud in the background. His caretaker, Veronica Crosby, right, helped Moses with the ceremony. Named after the channel marker closest to the place where services are held, the Marker 48 Fellowship operates on the belief that a church is a gathering of people, not a building. This was the Fellowship’s first baptism.
On a balmy September evening, just as the sun dipped below the horizon, the audience at the Texana Raceway in Edna, TX, rose in response to the sound of the national anthem over the subdued rumble of stock car engines. Though it was a town of less than six thousand, the pit lane was full of drivers from across Texas, some of whom had been attending races at small dirt tracks like this one for decades.
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Bitter & Sweet (2020)
Bronze Winner for Multimedia Doc Short at the 75th College Photographer of the Year Awards
The dying art of Mayan chocolate production is slowly being revitalized by Julio Saqui, a Mopan Maya by descent and a devotee of traditional cacao roasting methods. However, differences in culture and changes in the climate threaten his Mayan way of life.
This short doc was produced as a part of a project called Barriers. 27 students traveled to Belize during our Spring break to document how environmental changes are impacting Belizeans from the mountains to the sea. Then we made a website about it. That site can be found here: https://barriers.unc.edu/
In the darkness of foam-covered play castle, Jenny Anderson, a Victoria Independent School District speech therapist, steadies Lindsay Garcia’s hand while she uses her augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) device to say that she’s ready to get up and join the other children. Tablets that run special software allow children with special needs to communicate with trained counselors at this new VISD summer camp for students with disabilities.
Bay City quarterback Dylan Davidson faces an inevitable dogpile from the El Campo defense during a game at Ricebird Stadium.
Vergie Bitterly, 83, and Louis Bitterly, 91, sit for a portrait on their porch in the afternoon light. The Bitterlys have been married for sixty-seven years and have lived in this home in Victoria, TX, since the 1950s. The couple say that they are “just as much in love, if not more” than they were when they were first married. Occasionally, they still blow kisses to each other across the room.
Caitlin Cope, 19, has her face painted as part of the Victoria, TX, Body and Beauty Expo’s makeup competition on September 2, 2018. Michael Ramirez, 32, and other makeup artists were required to finish this makeup look under a deadline and were judged for their creativity, originality, and use of colors, among other criteria.
The Garden Spoke to Him (2019)
Vern Switzer is an independent farmer making his living from the earth outside Winston Salem, North Carolina. He believes that his way of life is in danger of dying out, and wants to record a song to help inspire others to take up the mantle.
The Victoria Generals swarm around pitcher Garrett Alexander, who closed out the game against the Acadiana Cane Cutters to win the 2018 TCL Championship, 7 runs to 4.
The Victoria Generals celebrated their 7-4 Texas Collegiate League 2019 win against the Acadiana Cane Cutters at Riverside Stadium by sharing champagne poured into their bowl-shaped trophy.
A fisher casts his line moments after sunrise, just beyond where the Gulf of Mexico had been connected to Cedar Bayou by a nine million dollar dredging operation. Three years later, Hurricane Harvey, followed by a series of bad rainstorms, has transformed the landscape and closed the man-made cut, which was intended to revitalize the area’s ecosystem. According to local fisher and boat captain John Dunithan, the fish in the bayou suffer without the connection to oxygenated water from the Gulf.
A member of the Cuero Volunteer Fire Department hauls a fire hose to within reach of a saltwater disposal tank which erupted into flames on Sunday, December 16, 2019, near Meyersville, TX. The cause of the fire was not immediately known. The tank, owned by BRB Concepts, LLC, was designed to contain the byproduct of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which uses water at high pressure to break natural gas out of underground pockets. Commenting on a similar fire in 2017, Neil Carman, the Clean Air Director at the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter, said that the hazardous material released into the atmosphere from such fires “at some point is going to drop to ground level, and it’s not good stuff to be breathing in.“
A diverse trio gathers around a chess board as the final day of the 2018 Texas Renaissance Festival winds down and visitors head for the exits.
Arnold Parker, 82, hadn’t played the guitar for twenty-seven years until he realized his grandchildren had never heard his music. In 2005, for his return to the stage at the Leo J. Welder Center in Victoria, TX, he played his favorite song, “You’re the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me.” Parker was welcomed into America’s Old-Time Country Music Hall Of Fame in August of 2018 for his 1956 track “Find a New Woman.” Here, he sits in his office, framed by pictures of himself from throughout his career.
Outside the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Rusty Alphin, left, a vocal critic of Confederate statue removal and member of pro-Confederate group Heirs to the Confederacy, stands as a counter-protestor (who asked to remain anonymous) shouts anti-racism mantras through a megaphone. After learning of the February 23 pro-Confederate event on Facebook, anti-fascists attempted to drown out the Heirs members. Despite the removal of UNC’s Silent Sam statue late last year, tensions between pro- and anti-Confederate groups remained.
A long exposure of Maestro Darryl One conducting the Victoria Symphony evokes the brushstrokes of Victoria, TX, artist Richie Vios, who, during this “Star-Spangled Salute” performance on October 27, 2018, had an hour and forty-five minutes to complete a watercolor painting of the Symphony in real time. Maestro One has been conducting the Victoria Symphony since 1995.
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Dedicated to my spiritual brother, Riley Howell, who on April 30, 2019, gave his life to protect fellow students during a school shooting at UNC-Charlotte.
If you would like to donate to families affected by school shootings, visit the Riley Howell Foundation Fund for more info.