Rayna, Tyler and Hannah, Lifestyle Photographs Baton Rouge, Louisiana

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Over the last few weeks i've had the real pleasure of getting to know the three little ones pictured above.  We've played football (soccer) in the garden and struggled with homework in the evenings but every moment has been a joy.

The images in the slidehow below were taken over a couple of days at the Louisiana State University (LSU) and the Louisiana state capital building in Baton Rouge. 

The slideshow below can be downloaded via i-tunes by clicking this link and can then be added to your video i-pod / i-phone.

LSU v Ole Miss College football

Yesterday (Saturday) was the last home game of the LSU Tigers college season. Previous plans were that a large group of us were to go to the game however due to flight delays ect it fell to Brandy and myself to go and watch the game.

Everyone around this area supports LSU as it's their local college however Brandy had been a cheerleader for Ole Miss and had no trouble letting everyone know who she would be shouting for.

College football in the States is more of a full day experience rather than just turn up for the game and then go home. All around the stadium fans turn up early and start to tailgate long before the game is due to start.





LSU drum section in amongst the tailgating




LSU Tigers walk from their bus to the stadium




Opening kick off



LSU really only had one spell of about five minutes in the whole game where they looked like they could make a game of it. In truth Ole Miss were by far the better team so it was Brandy who was very happy at the end of the day. The final result was Ole Miss 31 LSU 13.

It's not what you know it's who you know

Another fantastic day in the New Orleans area! Today was spent on the LSU campus with my photographer friend Chuck Cook. We started with the press briefing by Les Miles the head coach of the LSU fighting tigers. LSU are the reigning national champions in college football.

Coach Miles briefing covered the weeks previous game which had been a hard fought battle seeing the Tigers loose in overtime. After the briefing we had some spare time and took a walk around Death Valley (Tiger Stadium).

Chuck needed to upload the Coach Miles briefing and so a quick phone call was made to the official LSU photographer who just happened to be a good friend. Five minutes later and we were inside the stadium. Of course I couldn't resist having a walk around the inside. An experience very few people will ever have.

Big thanx goes out to Chuck Cook for inviting me along today and also to Steve the official LSU photographer for allowing me access to the stadium. Next time i'll be in the stadium will be for the LSU v Old Miss game in a couple of weeks time, of course there'll also be another 93,000 people there on that day as well.

As has been proven many many times over, it's not what you know but who you know. I love the way photographers are such a friendly bunch the world over.

Sport how it should be

I've just got back in from watching a high school American football match between Covington and Mandeville. What strikes me about the whole thing is the way sport is such a major part of the towns life.

I'm told that the two schools playing each other have roughly 3,000 pupils. Out of those students they manage to find, about 80+ football players, about 50+ cheerleaders and probably another 50 members of the band. I wonder how many schools in the UK of equal size could even find people who could play instruments.

A good sized crowd turned out to watch the game and were entertained not just by the actual game play but by live music and dance routines making it all to easy to be distracted and miss some great plays on the field.

When you consider that this was just the show put on by two local school teams there's no wonder they produce some excellent athletes.

Whilst at the game tonight i happened to check out the photographers shooting the game and noticed my good friend Chuck Cook was on the sideline. I first met Chuck about a month ago in London when he was in the UK to shoot the NFL game at Wembley. I phoned him on his mobile and asked if he had got the last shot, needless to say he was very suprised to see someone who he'd last seen some 6,000 miles away in another country.

Over a beer after the game Chuck invited me along to the LSU coaches press briefing on Monday (an offer only a madman would refuse). This is likely to be a great brieifng made even better as LSU have a big game tommorow against Alabama.

Does life get any better than this?