While back home visiting family and friends in June, I set out to create an entirely new body of work that consists of Southern people, places, and activities. It’s a personal project with specific goals I’ve had in mind. One of those goals is to celebrate the simplistic beauty of those that are from the rural South — to celebrate the fact that a lot of these people find their contentment in life through their relationships with their family, their friends, and their God. They’re content living modest lives and not chasing after materialistic crap that doesn’t really matter, in a society that wants them to believe that it does matter. Some of them are multi-millionaires. They could have all these things — the massive house and the fancy cars — but they don’t need them to elevate their sense of self-worth in life. You’d never know how much money some of them might have just by looking at, and talking, to them. And a lot of them, rich or poor, march to the beat of their own drums. Some people that aren’t from the South like to look down their noses at these people, thinking of them as less than intelligent, because they simply don’t understand them and the brilliance behind having such an outlook on life. The people looking down their noses don’t realize it’s a blessing, not a curse. All this being said, I present to you Red Braswell — he’s an excellent example of all this.

I was told that Red, who is 60, would make an excellent subject for my project, so I met him one afternoon at the public park in the heart of Greenville, FL. He was there heading up a fundraiser for the town’s 4^th of July fireworks show. It quickly became clear to me that he was pretty well liked, even loved, by a lot of people. He was as friendly as can be to me, and as you can see in these portraits I did of him later that day, he did make an excellent subject. But as interesting as he looks, what makes him such a truly great subject is the story and heart inside of those looks.

After seeking out “fame and fortune” in Tampa, FL and not finding it, he moved back home to Greenville to be with his family and friends in 1976. He had been working in construction, but soon discovered his love for farming, so that’s what he did up until 1980 when Leukemia put him in Shands Hospital for 7 1/2 months. “I’m proof of the power of prayer,” he told me on the phone. Apparently two separate banks in Greenville set up accounts for him and his family to help with covering the massive expense of the whole ordeal. He made it through it, but it left him both legally blind and legally deaf. The grace and prayers of the people of Greenville played a large part in getting him through it, though. “The town of Greenville is a good place. There were saints living here then,” he said.

Today he is back to working in construction with his brother, Kenny, remodeling and restoring homes. “He is kind of my eyes,” Red told me. “Everybody knows we’re a team.” The gratitude he has for the town of Greenville, its people, his family, and his friends was unmistakable to me. “Family is a big part of my heart. I have family and friends that take care of me, and the town of Greenville has been good to me. I’m a very fortunate person.”

I ask him to give me one thought he would like the readers of this post to get out of reading it and he told me:

“Believing in The Lord will change the world.”

Wow.

Believing in The Lord will change the world. Think about that. Think about the brilliance of that statement, despite its simplicity. Even if you don’t believe in God or Jesus, think about what The Bible says He asks us to do. “Love one another.” It would change the world for the better if we all believed in it and put it into practice in our daily lives.

Think about how we could change the world if we just managed to get that one thing right in life. Think about how we could change the world if we just managed to treat others the way we want to be treated. One by one, we could change the world if we would just try a little harder to love one another. And you don’t have to be a Christian to do that.

Red, thank you for understanding something about life that so many fail to understand: family and faith matter.

Red was one of those people that could have been a complete stranger on the street and I would have just had to have approached him and ask to do portraits of him. The following are my favorites of what I got of him that day along with my thoughts on them:

I started off the post with this shot because to me it is the best actual portrait I got based on what I know of him. This is him drinking a beer at one of the properties he’s restoring. Notice that he just has kind of a friendly look to him, somebody you’d want to have a conversation with.

This one is probably my favorite from a purely photographic standpoint. There’s something to be learned from this one too. It is commonly said that our body language says more to others than our actual words do. Well, this is an excellent example of that. Look at the shot just above this, and then this one. Same person. Same location. Same lighting. But there’s a totally different feel to it. In the shot above, he comes across as somebody you would like to sit down and have a beer with, but here, he looks like somebody you may should get away from with a quickness. All I did was instruct him to even up his weight on his feet, lower his eyes, and stare dead into my camera lens and it portrays him in a completely different way. His eyes is where this shot gets its power from. So, I said there was something to be learned from this — that would be to start paying more attention to what you’re doing with your body while interacting with others, because it likely is saying more than your mouth is.

My third favorite of the bunch. Love this one due to the tones in it. The way the background ties in to his shirt, hat, beard. All of it works together. And once again, I seem to have captured a totally different side of him here. Here he doesn’t look overly friendly, or mean. This one hints more at what he has been through. It shows in his eyes.

There was an outhouse at one of the locations I was photographing him. He ask me to photograph him in front of it. I thought, “Why not?” Here ya have it, Red. This one is for you.

I got this one right as I was about to leave. It seemed like every time I would look over at him I would see another portrait of him. This is him exactly how he was, I just ask him to turn and look at me.

This is Red “getting a dip.” The final shot of him putting the can back in his pocket is my favorite of the bunch, but they all work well in sequence like this I thought.