Living with Felons

Chris said that he spent 15 years in the State Penitentiary for a rape that occurred in Lewisburg, Tennessee in 1998. He went in 2 days before Christmas and got out two days before Christmas- exactly 15 years apart.

Like many, the 53 year old calls what was once a hotel, his apartment. That apartment that is his home is called the Casa Blanca.

In the 1950’s the apartment opened as a hotel known as the Holiday Inn. It was one of the first Holiday Inn hotels in America. The hotel turned apartment is on Murfreesboro Pike in Nashville and 90% of the residents today are felons with a good number being on the Sex Offender Registry. However, it is one of the few properties in Davidson County that takes in felons and allows them to live there.

The complex is under the management of a former probation officer by the name of Pauline Spalding. Needless to say, she runs a very tight ship with a gun on one hip and a Taser on the other.

Johnny Navy

He had a US Navy tattoo on his right hand and he told me, “I was in Panama when Manuel Noriega was captured.” He served in the Navy for thirteen years in the late 1970’s and 1980’s.

History unfolded in 1989 as Noriega was brought down by a team of Navy Seals. After the former leader was taken into custody, he was flown by the US Air Force to America to stand trial for drug trafficking charges, evidently he was bringing drugs into the US while dictating the country of Panama.

As for Johnny, the 54 year old man is wheelchair bound for the most part and lives in a motel that was converted into efficiency apartments. He told me that Hospice services visit him weekly. Johnny said, “I have thyroid cancer and it has gotten too bad.”

In his younger days after the Navy, he was no stranger to trouble. He was arrested multiple times, but that was then and now he is simply making ends meet.

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." - Norman Cousins (1915-1990), American Political Journalist, World Peace Advocate

Nicaragua and Oppression

Nicaragua sits between the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. It is a land filled with smiling faces mixed with oppression. This photo was shot in a busy market in Nicaragua. 

People

Street Photography