When he isn’t in Cuba he has been working at one of only two schools in the 9th Ward in New Orleans. Here is a video The School at Blair Grocery…

The video does a far better job of describing what Nat Turner and Rob are trying to do than I could. Recently The Blair School have applied for a a grant from the Kellog Foundation to continue their work.

Listening to Rob talk about the school and the difficulties of life in the lower 9th Ward I knew there was a story I wanted to tell. He mentioned that he would like to have a handful of DSLRs and Digicams to use in an art class for the students (currently they have 10 students). So hopefully, if I can find a backer I will travel to the Lower 9th to document The Blair School and teach the kids a bit about photography. Of course funding for that kind of thing is hard to come by these days so I may end up footing the bill myself.

Before Rob left for NOLA in his brick red VW Bus I called him up and asked if he had time for a quick portrait. I wanted a good portrait of Rob before he left to help with promoting our little scheme.

The light was a little hazy due to the Lockheed Fire just over the ridge behind my apartment so we went in to the “court yard” or my imitation palatial apartment and made a handful of images.

In my mind the unkempt disarray of our “court yard” seemed to fit in perfect with the images Rob had painted in my head with his descriptions of a 9th Ward largely forgotten by the Federal Government and the news media. And no, he is always that skinny. I have no idea what those stomach worms survived on.

I honestly have no idea how I make these connections in my head any more than I know how all this detritus from all the tenants who’ve ever lived here in our little South Felton Ghetto apartment has collected in such a perfect way but it all seemed to congeal for our little photo shoot.

So Rob is telling me about how the levies everywhere are being built up high and the city is being restored – except in the Lower 9th (where all the poor people live). The difficulty of bringing a civilizing agent like education to a part of town that as he describes it sounds more akin to the para-apocalyptic descriptions of a Palahniuk or McCarthy novel . And I think, “huh, ok then, climb up on that stair master with your beer.”

So here is the deal. I need 5-10 Digital SLRs. They don’t have to be fancy. Just a body with a 35mm lens (on the crop sensor 35 is closer to a 50mm lens), and 5-10 little digicams to take to the school. Oh, and if you wouldn’t mind kicking down some cash for travel and expenses that would be rad as well. And you would be a huge help if you would share this post with your friends. Working under the 6 degrees of separation theory I’m hoping that someone knows someone who knows someone who will help me get my little documentary published – any where.

For you photographers, the shots were done with 2 SB 600s on stands to each side of Rob with gobos to block flair from the strobes reaching the lens. One SB 800 on camera with one of those over priced Garry Fong Lightspheres as a diffuser on camera acting as the master controller through CLS. And yes I know I got some shadow on the fence. If you are so upset about it then send me a couple more strobes and next time I will also light the fence.