All Photographs © Reed Young.

Long known as the seafood capital of Alabama, Bayou La Batre is a small town of approximately 2,500. Over the past decade, foreign imports, the rising cost of diesel fuel, and overfishing have eroded the seafood industry that supports this community. Hurricanes Ivan and Katrina, slowed business even further, and the community was just beginning to recover when the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in April. Now, BP has thrown astonishing amounts of money at this small town, and competition for “free money”  pitted community members against each other. Worse still, the drama distracts from the reality of what will happen when the oil money stops, and the community is left without its industry and livelihood. – Reed Young

Above: Paul Nelson is the president of South Bay Community Alliance, a volunteer organization that advocates on behalf of the citizens of Bayou La Batre and Coden. Paul’s home was destroyed in Katrina.

This evening,‘Mired in the Bayou,’ a mixed-medium exhibit, featuring the work of photographers Michael De Pasquale and Reed Young, written narrative and audio by journalist Erin Sheehy, and an installation by artist Graham Holly opens at 99% Gallery and Inhabitat.com. To find out more information about the show click here. To view more of Reed Young’s work click here.

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All Images © Reed Young

Sturgis, a prairie town on the westernmost edge of South Dakota, claims only 6,000 permanent residents… The town swells to nearly a half million for the first week of August every summer during the famous motorcycle rally. At the end of the 2008 rally, 66 marriage licenses had been issued, 3 rally-related deaths occurred, millions of t-shirts had been sold, the South Dakota economy claimed $10.5 million in rally-related sales, and 543 tons of garbage were hauled away. These are just a few faces of another Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in America’s heartland. To see more of Reed Young’s work click here.

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