I've Always Been Looking
My love of photography began long before I ever thought of calling myself a photographer.
I was about eight years old when my aunt gave me my first camera for Christmas—a little dark-pink, rectangular camera whose brand I can no longer remember. What I do remember is what happened after I got it.
I took it everywhere.
Growing up in North Texas, I would lie in the grass and point it toward the clouds. I wandered down to the creek trying to photograph the water, falling debris, tadpoles and frogs. Somewhere around that same time, I discovered my first National Geographic magazine and decided that one day I would become a photographer for them and travel the world.
I didn’t know anything about photography. I just knew there were things in the world that made me stop and look—and I wanted to keep them.
As a teenager, disposable cameras became my way back to photography. I even staged little outdoor photo shoots with a dear friend, photographing her on fences, in pastures and down by the creek. Even then, I was drawn to the way the natural world could transform a photograph.
Photography stayed with me through adulthood, even when pursuing it professionally felt far out of reach. I photographed my children, family and the people around me. While working in assisted living and memory care, I began creating portraits of residents and their families simply because I saw a need. The photographs weren’t part of my job, but the response from families taught me something I’ve carried ever since:
Sometimes a photograph becomes precious simply because someone noticed a moment worth preserving.
Finally, the Camera
Then, one Christmas, my husband—who had spent years watching me photograph practically everything—asked me a question.
If he were going to buy me a camera, which one would I want?
I researched, of course. I told him. But somewhere in my mind, a “real” camera still belonged to that distant someday I had imagined since childhood.
That Christmas, someday arrived.
Since then, I’ve immersed myself in learning the craft of photography and taken my camera across Louisiana, following the landscapes and wildlife that continually stop me in my tracks. My husband’s support of this lifelong dream now includes a flat-bottom boat, allowing me to venture farther into the wetlands and experience places I once could only imagine reaching.
And out there, I found the same sense of awe I had been chasing with that little pink camera all those years ago.
Louisiana Through Shadow & Light
There is something about the Louisiana swamp that is difficult to put into words.
It is the richness of the colors. Ancient roots twisting through dark water. A heron standing almost motionless before suddenly taking flight. Wild hogs moving through the landscape. An alligator barely breaking the surface, its eyes quietly watching me as I watch it.
And then there is the light.
Sometimes the canopy is so heavy that the swamp seems wrapped in shadow—until a shaft of sunlight finds its way through and illuminates one seemingly random place, as though nature chose that exact spot for a momentary spotlight.
Other times, it’s something tiny: a single red flower standing alone where I never expected to find it.
Those are the moments that make me raise my camera.
I feel incredibly privileged and grateful simply to witness them.
Somewhere inside me is still that little girl lying in the North Texas grass, pointing a camera toward the clouds and wondering what else there might be to see.
My hope is that my photographs allow you to see some of it too.
When one of my images becomes part of your home, I hope it feels like more than a photograph of a beautiful place. I hope it gives you a small piece of this extraordinary, untamed world—a glimpse of the Louisiana I am fortunate enough to experience through shadow and light.
— Kat Lassus
