w/nw Environmental Portraits

Shep Smith, cotton broker, Holly Springs Mississippi - actually, the brokerage business of purchase of raw cotton from farmers and sale to processors who made it into cloth became institutionalized and automated several decades ago. There are no more working cotton brokers. But, Mr. Smith still goes to his office on the downtown square of Holly Springs, Mississippi every day. He says he now plays low stakes internet poker and goes to lunch with contemporaries in the same situation has his. Holly Springs was once an economic powerhouse from the cotton industry but has suffered from "white flight" and automation in modern times. The downtown square looks just like the set from a 1960's movie. Mr. Smith was thrilled to have a new visitor who delighted in his stories of a previous time gone by.

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Omar Gordon, Ground Zero Blues Club, Clarksdale Mississippi - 2007. Omar was 16 years old when I made this photo. He was the lead guitar player for the Blues bans "Razor Blade" back then but moved over to keyboard for the open mike session when they went on break. He later toured as a drummer with a different blues band. Today, he is a well established musician in the Mississippi Delta.

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