The Alachua County Fair is going on right now through Sunday. They expect 35,000 through the week, but when I went to shoot Monday night, there were maybe a few hundred people there. As an adult, there really wasn’t much to do. The ride I photographed above was one of the few that could be enjoyed by big people.

This was a really fun find while walking back to the office from a class. Nicholas Cravey is the student whose shadow is projected onto the sheet from the other side. He said he set the sheet up on the plaza because he was bored and you have to do something with that time. I’d say this was definitely a better use of his time than throwing down on NCAA 10 or Halo. The size of the canvas attracted people passing through the plaza, who he invited to paint with him.

The LSU game marked my first trip to Louisiana for a visit, along with New Orleans and Baton Rouge. We stayed near the French Quarter in New Orleans, which was perfect for me without a car. Signs of Katrina damage were still around. I did a long walk through most of the French Quarter Saturday morning before the game. Much of Louis Armstrong Park was still closed with heavy damage. Owners of one or two properties inside the French quarter had even left faded X marks from when search teams scoured the neighborhoods in 2005.
Along the Miss. River, I watched as a man poured someone’s ashes into the murky water and leaned over to a woman for a long embrace. The peace of that moment was broken when I walked just a little further down the waterfront and saw a man take a break from fishing to urinate against a pier as tourists looked on.

This house on the edge of the French Quarter was recently sold and the new owner is rebuilding it.

A University of Chicago graduate student talks to tourists from the hole where a metal binder for a scroll of cloth containing orders from France was found with the date inscribed as “Nov. 10, 1751.”

I ran into a team from the University of Chicago digging at the St. Louis Cathedral on my long walk. They had made some cool finds and were wrapping up the dig before the cathedral restored the garden to pre-Katrina style.

After a short trip to Cafe Du Monde where a bus boy earned a good tip by handing us a bag of the tasty doughnuts off to the side of massive line, we were off to Baton Rouge.

Tim Tebow, trying to elude Kelvin Sheppard on a third-quarter run, finished with 134 yards passing and 38 on the ground.

Death Valley had to be one of the better stadiums I’ve shot in as far as crowd atmosphere goes. The miles of tailgaters outside did raucously find their seats for the game. I passed photos during the game to the St. Petersburg Times and ended up with one in print and online. The one hour time difference made all the deadlines tighter than usual, but it still worked out.

UF coach Urban Meyer reacts to the second personal foul called against Florida on the same LSU drive in the second quarter of the Gators’ 13-3 win against LSU Saturday, October 10, 2009 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.

UF quarterback Tim Tebow shakes hands with LSU defensive tackle Drake Nevis after the Gators’ 13-3 win against LSU Saturday, October 10, 2009 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.