In Shooter Heaven, all assignments end with Jube,..

I shot a number of the championship games in the state basketball tournament yesterday. We only had one local team and they won their game, so that I meant I had the pleasure of not having to take pictures of any sad kids. Hooray Jube!

First up, Wilkinson County.





Next, Wesleyan beats Pace Academy.





Finally, Buford threepeats against a team with a 6'3" center. Whoah.





They jubed it up early.



Thanks for looking.

Grant B.

National Signing Day

As in most years, we made the rounds to the local high schools sending football players on to the college level yesterday on National Signing Day. Its always a challenge to do something other than an image of a stiff kid scratching his signature flanked by family. I gave it a shot. I feel pretty good about it.



Both of these guys were headed to four year schools after playing at Northside High School, Warner Robins, GA. I don't think either of them were often in suits. Jeqaundus Albritton, the player on the left, was tying a tie for Steven Nelson, right.



More from the same school. I love the idea that they needed fresh breath to sign their letters of intent. You have to do it up right, you know?



This is the kind of moment I guess I was trying to mine. Steven Nelson gets a kiss from his mom. They are, football prowess notwithstanding, somebody's baby.



Different school, different kids. Chris Swain, left, of Mount de Sales Academy, a Catholic school in Macon, GA, was the only kid in our city to get the nod from a big time program this year. He's headed to Navy. Brandon Sartin, on the right, will play at Morehouse. Here they get the attaboys from classmates after signing their letters.

Well, that was my attempt at breathing something into signing day. Thanks for looking, take it easy.
GB

Merry Christmas

From the living nativity at Mabel White Baptist Church in Macon, GA.




Merry Christmas!

Special Needs Child Care

Heather Duncan has a lengthy look at the trouble the parents of kids with special needs have finding child care in Middle Georgia. Link to story here.. http://tinyurl.com/2eyl4ru ..

In shooting the story, the images divided into two separate streams. Some of the first stream, images from a daycare center for medically vulnerable children, ran in the Telegraph and macon.com. The other stream, which went unpublished, I'll share here.

William Meelaphsom is a nine year old autistic boy. According to his grandmother and primary caretaker Marcie Meelaphsom, she needs the help of both William's mother Mara and Andrea Stone, a home health nurse who has been with William since he was 3, just to keep up with her grandson.

William has little fear for injuring himself and is largely nonverbal. Here Andrea Stone, left, Mara Meelaphsom, right, and Marcie Meelaphsom, in the mirror, manage to get William out the door and on the way to speech therapy.



The speech issue seemed tough for William. He has things to to say, but just can't easily communicate them. Here Marcie goes to great lengths to get William to explain why he is upset. Direct eye contact and some signing looked to be important tools.



Andrea Stone, William's home health nurse, is incredibly devoted to him. By her own accounting, she has spent most days over the last six years with him. While following her car from the Meelaphsom's home to the therapist's office, I saw her carrying on a conversation with him, pointing out animals on the side of the road, keeping him company. I'm sure it goes deeper than good company. Here they wait together for William's speech therapy appointment.



This is the sort of care that kids like William, who benefits from good care in his public school, still need in the home. Hey, the parents need it, too. Raising kids is hard. Raising kids with medical conditions that the doctors themselves only partly understand has to be exponentially harder yet.