Nobody Nose

Had a pretty busy day today. It started by going to the Sheriffs office to take a photo of the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries having a lottery to decide who can catch alligators this season. I guess only a few people can hunt gators so they draw ping-pong balls out of a bucket to see who gets to hunt.

I got there a little late and they were done picking out the ping-pong balls. So, one of the guys there says "No problem, we'll just act like we're pulling ping-pong balls out of this bucket." It just happened to be the same guy who's running for Sheriff. So I played along, took the staged photo of him smiling at me while reaching into a bucket, then quickly threw the images away.

After that, it was down the bayou to find anything to do with commercial fishing. I hit up a shrimp packing plant in Dulac. The nice secretary served me a piece of German Chocolate Cake while waiting for "bossman" to come back from the doctors office. Once he got back, he gave me a tour of their facility. It smelled REALLY bad in there.

While there, I got a call about a trailer fire. Turned out not to be much, but one of my firemen buddies was there so I had a nice chat with him. It smelled like burnt stuff out there.

From there, I went to a Budweiser distributing warehouse and took some shots of a dude loading cases of beer onto a forklift. It smelled like a Sunday morning Frat house in there.

From there, I went to a Pro/Am golf tournament. There's a minor league type golf tournament in Houma this week. The dude who won it two years ago has been making some noise on the PGA tour this year.

I hooked up with a foursome and followed them for the back nine. After the 3rd hole I smelled like a mix of shrimp, fire, beer and sweat. It was nasty hot outside today.

When I got back to the office and started to comb through all my photos from today, I thought this photo kind of fit well. And it's kind of funny too.

Geekfest PDX 2007

I spent this past weekend in Portland Ore. attending Geekfest. An annual gathering of photographers from around the country. (Two from Houma... Misty and me)

It's a weekend without editors, no right or wrong, no holes to fill, no rules... except to make some images and have a good time. And that's exactly what I needed. I feel like my Art has been slipping away and my photography has turned into shooting only what the paper wants. And I hate that feeling. I need to get back into shooting matt stamey photos and not just Houma Courier photos. If that makes sense. And this weekend was a good escape for me. It gave me the chance to shoot for me, and only me.

Anyway, enough of the boring talk, lets look at some pictures.

1: Hung out at this fountain for a while in downtown Portland, that dude sitting there was pretty cool.


2: When you gotta go, you gotta go I guess. These were some Police horses we saw.


3: A fleet of Navy ships were in Downtown Portland. (there is a river the divides the city) Not quite sure why, but there were about 6-7 huge gray Navy ships parked along the bank. So here's a Sailor sitting on the deck just hanging out I guess.


4: Across the River from our Hotel was a carnival, so we spent some time eating cotton candy and even rode that ship ride that swings back and fourth. Misty loves that ride... I'll be just fine if I never ride one again. But here are a couple kids who just got inflatable toys.


5: On Saturday, Misty and rented a car and drove to Multnomah Falls (Mul-no-mah). It's a huge water fall about 30 miles east of Portland. It has trails all over the place for people to walk/hike. Some of the trails are paved while others are just skinny paths in the middle of the woods. So we took one of those skinny paths. We hiked for a little over two hours. I don't know how far. It was beautiful. There was a light rain falling and the higher you got, the foggier it got. The trails pretty much follow the Columbia River. So every now and then you could look through the trees and see a boat fishing for Salmon or Trout or Halibut or whatever else the fish for.

Here are some shots from that afternoon. We got soaked. The rain wasn't very strong, but when you're out in it for almost three hours, it really adds up. Misty got a poncho at the gift shop and we ripped it in half and taped them to our cameras. I think our cameras were the only things dry when we got back to the car.




6: After the waterfalls, we decided to drive to the coast. According to the map, it only looked like about an hour and half drive. Pretty easy. Nope... I forgot we were in the mountains. We took this windy two-lane road in the rain. It wasn't fun. On the way back, I had to pull over on the side of the road to keep from throwing up. I closed my eyes for a while and became less dizzy.

Speaking of getting pulled over, while we were driving from the coast back to Tillamook to find a place to eat, a Tillamook County Sheriff Officer stopped me for what he thought was drunk driving. It wasn't drunk driving, just bad driving. I assured him that I had nothing to drink and after looking at my drivers licence he let us go. But only after we asked him for a place to eat.

We made it back to Portland just fine.

Anyway, the coast was fun... cold and rainy, but fun. We ate at a local diner place that turned out to be a hotel chain all through the western United States. But I had a chunk of Halibut so I figured it was pretty local.



A couple quick tid-bits about Oregon... Did you know it's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon? Yep, we stopped at a gas station in Tillamook, went inside to get a snack and the dude asked how much I wanted, went outside and pumped it for me.

Also, did you know there is no sales tax in Oregon? Yep, we did some shopping and eating while we were there... and when the price tag says 32 dollars, that's exactly how much it'll be. Or when the bag of sore throat drops says $3.95, that's exactly how much it'll cost. Pretty cool I thought.

If anybody is debating on where to go on their next trip, I suggest Portland and the surrounding area. It's beautiful up there, and the weather was great. We wore jackets most of the time... and it's June. I loved it.

The worst part of the trip (aside from the drive to the coast) was arriving in New Orleans at Midnight to 80 degree weather and humidity that'll make you sweat in less than a minute.

Matt Stamey/Staff

I figured I'd post a little something before heading out to Portland this weekend. Misty and I are attending Geekfest, a workshop hosted by Aphotoaday.org. It's pretty much a gathering of photographers... and we'll shoot some stuff, talk about it, shoot some more, talk about it, eat, shoot, sleep, talk, shoot... until Sunday. Should be a good time.

A couple of things going on about me...

I got another Staff infection. Not cool. I've got three "flare-ups" on me right now. The doctor hooked me up with some drugs (antibiotics I assume) and I should be good in a day or two. These things are similar to that thing on my hand a while back. Only at a different location. They hurt.

The Courier is designing another "wrap" page using my photos that won awards this past year. A "wrap" is a single page thing that wraps a bunch of insert advertisements in Sunday papers. They did one of these things for me last year, and want to do another one this year. This page also has a picture of me. Only Dee Dee (my boss) wanted a new, more current photo to use. So this evening I took some self portraits in the studio. And this is what I ended up with.

BTW: I didn't use any photoshop to make this image. I think it's pretty cool. I don't know if it'll fly with higher-ups, but at least now I have current self portrait. (as if I don't take enough already)

While I'm at it... here are a few images I've made recently.


This kid is 7... he's a state champ bike racer in his age group. This is the type of photo I make when the subject has already done what we're writing a story on, and the subject isn't doing anything at the time of the assignment.


A kid shoots a 20-gage shotgun. The Junior Shooting team down here was practicing for the state contest.

The Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux celebrated their 30th birthday with a REALLY LONG mass Tuesday night. The main guy stood outside the front door of the church greeting people after the mass.