A picture may be worth a thousand words, but can we believe what we see? Like writers, photographers almost always have a point of view and so while we may think we know what we are seeing we can’t always be sure.
Billy Weeks has worked as a photographer for all of his professional life. He was a staff photographer at the Chattanooga Times before becoming the Director of Photography for both the Chattanooga Times and the Chattanooga Times Free Press. He works as a free-lance International documentary photographer these days, but he also teaches a class on photography at UTC.
On Wednesday March 4th he’s hosting the first UTC Photo Night. He and a number of other professional photographers from Chattanooga will be showing slides of their work and talking about both what they do and how they do it.
Richard Winham talked to Billy Weeks along with Doug Strickland, a photographer with the Chattanooga Times Free Press and Dr. Michael Friedman from UTC’s Department of Communication.
A young girl lays out hundreds of bricks to dry in the sun in Kathmandu, Nepal. During the dry season one can see dark columns of smoke pouring from over 5oo brick factories in Nepal. The Kathmandu Valley has rich clay that is perfect for making high quality bricks, but the factories have a dark side. The brickyards of Nepal employ thousands of migrant workers from Nepal and India. Many of the migrant workers travel from the poorer villages to repay a debt that may have occurred with a third party and they carry thousands of bricks by hand or by small donkey. Children who traveled with their parents work in the brickyard all day caring bricks for a few dollars a day. Respiratory and stomach diseases are common because of poor sanitation, air pollution, and lack of clean drinking water. Because many people die working in theses poor conditions the term “Blood Bricks” has been used to describe the brickyards of Nepal.
A 13 year old girl carries bricks by hand to be fired. The brickyards of Nepal employ thousands of migrant workers from Nepal and India. Many of the migrant workers travel from the poorer villages to repay a debt that may have occurred with a third party and they carry thousands of bricks by hand or by small donkey. Children who traveled with their parents work in the brickyard all day caring bricks for a few dollars a day. Monday May 26th, 2014.
Baylor School swimmer Sam McHugh poses for a portrait underwater Thursday, May 8, 2014, in the school pool in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Odetta plays at Riverbend.
