Introducing the wolf pack.

I may have to start a separate blog entirely devoted to documenting the adventures of the puppy pack, considering that they are oh so photogenic. Their cuteness is overwhelming. Until then, I'll be posting them here. Get excited for the adventures in chaos of (from left to right, top then bottom) Mingus, Darwin, Panda, Barbie, Kaiser Soze, Simone De Beauvoir (my pretty little poo bundle), Boo Radley and Haji.

Today we took a trip to Lady Bird Lake and were the most popular puppies on the trail. Geeze, if I were in the market for a girlfriend, this would be the best way to pick up chicks. Simone jumped off of a tall terrace leaving all the boys in her dust and she proved to be a remarkable swimmer. If only they's stay this small permanently, we could keep all of them in our backyard forever. Heres to a few more months of adventures in puppy land.

Red Cross training

I was sitting in my living room when I felt the house shake, as if someone had slammed the door as hard as they could. Went outside and followed the sirens down the street towards a fire a couple of blocks away. Luckily, no one was killed... the family smelt a gas leak and called it in, firefighters arrived just before the leak exploded and blew the roof off the house.

Issue 0

This photo illustration is from a mock fashion shoot for a mock ad for an online magazine that's in the works. Heads up; we will soon be taking contributors and would love to get as many fellow photogs as possible involved. More info on that coming soon.

RH

The quest to save Reagan High from automatic closure in May continues, although the mood on campus was quite positive today. Nothing is official yet, but due to some strong community activism and support, things are looking up.

malariafreefuture.org

posted.

welcome puppies!

Nietzsche is a mother and in 4-6 weeks Ranjana and I will be too :)

Sing.



Swing.



Salsa.

time to celebrate

for a handful of reasons.

The men of the family

...or at least some of them.

Barrett, Tim, Dad, and Uncle Rick enjoying each others company at Clayton's wedding.

Reagan High School struggles

Reagan High School from Courtney Dudley on Vimeo.

This is my final project for Donna's doc video class. I'm relatively pleased with how it came out, although I always envisioned it as a audio slideshow (boy, have I missed shooting stills). I hope to continue working to expand this project in the future to better encompass and be more wholly representative of the education reform issue. Its a lot of small problems compiled to make one giant one... and then I want to include a solution, which... well... does anyone know what that one solution might be? Its a tough thing to tackle.

I'd love to hear thoughts/critiques/ideas.

camp

Krause Springs. Freezing cold. So much fun. Happy birthday, Sarah Moore.

funx3 '08

St. Vincent was one of the best shows I've seen and shot in as long as I can remember. Keep it up Annie.

And I'd venture to say that Fun Fun Fun fest, and other smaller festivals like it, are much more enjoyable than the big mega-fests like ACL. I could shoot as long as I wanted in the pit, there was free beer/snacks/earplugs backstage, our cell phones didn't loose coverage and it was easy to hop from stage to stage without fighting through the masses and sweating profusely. As a regular attendee, you could show up at the stage mid-show and still get super close, if you're slinky. Fun, fun, fun.

African Americans and the media from Courtney Dudley on Vimeo.

This is a little video I helped V shoot for her Citizen Journalism class. We talk a lot about the history of African-Americans in the media (remember OJ on the cover of TIME?) in our journalism intro classes. But these issues, like the lack of coverage and the inaccurate representation of the black community, seem to leave the forefront of our minds somewhere between J315 and becoming a "real" writer, reporter, photojournalist, or whatever.

"The responsibility in covering the news is to provide an accurate representation of society and if you are excluding people you are perpetuating stereotypes of people and you are not fulfilling your obligation as a journalist. This isn't about 'this is a nice thing to do,' this is really about good journalism." -Dr. Paula Poindexter

It's something we all need to remember. Sometimes I get really idealistic, inspired and borderline crazy when talking/thinking/pondering about journalism, especially the photo kind. I mean, we have the power to make change... really, we do! We can't make people read the news, we can only go so far as to provide it. So lets be and write and show the change we want to see in the world. Lets give an accurate representation of society so that society has the knowledge and the information that it needs to change and improve.

Get Live.

Reagan High homecoming dance 2008.

Reagan High

I've been hanging out with high schoolers every day- and its a dream come true. Really, I've been trying to get into a school like Reagan to shoot for over a year now. And this is a great one to start with; Great kids, great teachers... but Reagan is the next Johnston, meaning that if they don't bring their TAKS scores up, this is their last year. I hope to spend the rest of the semester covering all sorts of goings-on at the school, and hopefully getting to the bottom of the issue, if there is one. Here's the beginning.

The Reagan High Football team, otherwise known as the Raiders, plays Crockett this weekend during the finale to the homecoming week extravaganza. Reagan has to win this game to have a chance at going to state. Both teams are number one in their districts.






And a few days in the life of a high school student:

golden hour at maker faire

finally!

Malaria in Goa from Courtney Dudley on Vimeo.

What a weight lifted.

Jordan and I shot this during the last week of the India trip. It's been haunting me ever since.
More on India here.

I recommend clicking on that little "HD is off" on the right hand side and watching it in the big Vimeo player. Thanks Joey.

family portrait

Sometimes, when just gotta pick up and go to Little Rock for a National Society of Chemists conference, you end up going on the best road trip ever.