Jesse D Poole, Natchitoches, LA (2026)

05/14/2026

Nikon Coolpix S9500.
2013 point-and-shoot.

Lately I’ve been gravitating back toward these older little cameras more and more.

Something about them feels honest.
The colors drift a little.
The highlights bloom weird sometimes.
The files aren’t perfect.

But maybe that’s the point.
These feel closer to memory than content.

Made these walking around downtown Natchitoches this evening.
—

Shot on Nikon

05/13/2026

Deep inside the Rio Grande National Forest, beyond Creede, Colorado… this is what most people would call the beginning of the Rio Grande. Or at least one of the closest recognizable versions of it. And honestly? There’s no dramatic sign. No gift shop. No “START OF THE RIVER” marker planted in the dirt.

It just… appears.
A trickle.

A cold vein of mountain water slipping out from the San Juan Mountains near Stony Pass and Canby Mountain along the Continental Divide.

That’s the strange thing about the Rio.

One of the most argued over, politicized, fought over, loved, abused, photographed, misunderstood rivers in North America… starts up here in silence. In alpine tundra and frozen mud. In pockets of still water reflecting pine trees before sunrise.

This morning it was barely 30°.

The water was frigid enough to sting your hands. And standing there in the dark, watching the river reflect in on itself before the wind touched it… it felt impossible to imagine where this same water eventually goes.

But up here? None of that exists yet.

Up here the Rio just... exists.
—

This Rio Project
Shot on Canon USA

https://www.jessedpoole.com/the-rio-project

05/12/2026

Honestly… an art show has crossed my mind more than once lately.

Not some stiff, quiet gallery where everybody whispers and pretends to understand shadows on a wall.

I’m talking about something real.
Like—let me get loud and talk.

Big prints. Stories behind the frames. Road dust still on the boots. Maybe some music. Maybe bourbon. Maybe a projector throwing thousands of miles worth of moments across the walls somewhere.

The Rio Project. Louisiana. The Southwest. Forgotten places. Small towns. Borderlands. Light people usually drive right past.

The stuff that lives between the polished Instagram posts.

I don’t know…

Maybe it’s time.

Who’d show up?
Who’d come?

And more importantly—what would you want to see?

What would you want to experience?
—

Shot on Canon USA

05/12/2026

Tuff Canyon feels almost unreal at sunset.

Like the earth split open and just decided to let the light leak through for a few minutes before dark.

This place inside Big Bend National Park was carved through layers of volcanic ash and basalt by Blue Creek over millions of years. The canyon walls themselves are made from compressed volcanic ash—“tuff”—left behind by violent eruptions roughly 30 million years ago when this entire region was volcanically active.

What gets me about places like this is how quiet they feel now.

No chaos. No notifications.
No big crowds—hell—no one. I was there alone.
Just wind moving through stone that survived fire, pressure, floods, and time itself.

And then the sun starts dropping behind the canyon walls and suddenly the whole place glows like it remembers what created it.
—

Shot on Canon USA

05/11/2026

Over 13,000 people.

That’s honestly wild to me.

Because when I started this page, it wasn’t some calculated business move or influencer strategy. I was just a guy with a camera trying to figure out why certain moments made me feel something… and chasing that feeling across backroads, deserts, swamps, mountains, small towns, and wherever else the light decided to show up.

Some of y’all have been here since the beginning.

Some of you just got here recently.

But every comment, every share, every reaction, every print purchase, every conversation at a gas station or coffee shop when someone says, “Hey man—I follow your work…”

That stuff matters to me more than you probably realize.

13K may not sound massive in the world of viral internet nonsense… but to a photographer from Louisiana who built this thing frame by frame without shortcuts?

Yeah. It means something.

So let’s keep pushing this thing forward.
Let’s see if we can drag this page kicking and screaming to the next level.

And because I appreciate y’all—I’m keeping my word:

I’m going to pick ONE person from the comments below and send them a signed 8x12 print completely free. No catch. No gimmick. No “just pay shipping.” None of that bu****it.

If you want in—just drop a comment below.

Tell me where you’re from, how long you’ve followed the work, your favorite photo I’ve shared… whatever.

And seriously—thank you for being here.

This page has opened doors I never imagined, but I still feel like we’re just getting warmed up.

—Jesse

05/11/2026

Cold air. Empty roads.

Leaving the campsite that morning, I stopped every chance I got. Tiny pull-offs. Gravel shoulders. A couple driveways I borrowed for sixty seconds at a time just long enough to kill the engine, grab the camera, and make another frame.

Because that’s what this project has become.
Not just chasing “the shot.”
Documenting the river honestly.
Patiently.
Piece by piece.

Up here, the Rio still feels untouched. Young, cold, wild. It snakes through the valley with absolutely no awareness of what waits for it a few hundred miles south—dams, border walls, politics, drought, industry, arguments, headlines.

But here?
Here it just moves.

Through pine trees and snowmelt.
Past old mountain towns and open valleys.
Quietly carving its way through Colorado like it has for centuries.

And if you look closely in this frame—you’ll notice you’re not alone out there.

That’s what I love about working slowly.
You start noticing things.
The way light shifts across a valley.
The sound of water moving under morning wind.
A single bird sitting high above the Rio watching some idiot photographer wander around with a camera.

That’s part of why I keep stopping.
Why I keep pulling over. Why I keep documenting.

Rivers remember things...
And somebody should probably remember them too.

These landscapes don’t scream for tourism.
They just exist. And honestly?
That might be what makes them feel sacred.

The Rio Grande outside South Fork, Colorado.
—
The Rio Project
Shot on Canon USA

05/11/2026

Hiking in the Great Sand Dunes National Park…maybe I did it wrong.

05/10/2026

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there holding it together with duct tape, caffeine, love, and sheer force of will. The ones carrying families on their backs while still somehow showing up every damn day.

But especially this one—

Corey.
The most badass woman and mother I know.

I know life gets loud.
And I know sometimes you question yourself… but honestly, I don’t think you see yourself the way the rest of us do.

You’re the rock in this family.
The steady hand when everything feels chaotic.
The one that keeps showing up even when it’s hard.
Even when it’s exhausting.
Even when nobody says thank you enough.

And me?
I’d choose you and this little family over and over again without hesitation.

Keep being yourself.
Keep being strong.
Keep being the badass you are.

You’re our rockstar.
Always.
—

Shot on Canon USA

05/10/2026

At this point, I’m convinced the universe is actively preventing this shoot from happening.

For 3–4 years now, me and Ben Pierce Photography have talked about linking up to shoot the Louisiana swamps… and somehow we always miss each other.

Funniest part? We BOTH ended up in Utah this year… in completely different parts of the state. 😂

So screw it.

Y’all help push this into existence. Because honestly? The swamps deserve this collaboration.
—

05/08/2026

I think we’ve hit a point in photography where perfection is killing the soul of the image.

Everything is razor sharp.
Everything is HDR’d into oblivion.
Every sunset looks radioactive.
Every mountain has been moved three miles to the left in Photoshop because someone decided reality wasn’t cinematic enough.

And look—do whatever you want.
It’s your art.

But at some point, if the sky is fake, the light is fake, the colors are fake, the texture is fake, and half the frame is AI-generated or composited together… are you still a photographer?

Or are you a digital illustrator with a camera attachment?

Meanwhile some of the most emotionally honest photographs I’ve seen lately are grainy as hell.
Soft around the edges.
Blown highlights.
Cheap point-and-shoots from 2004.
Old CCD sensors barely holding onto dynamic range like a dying cigarette in a desert wind.

Why?

Because people are starving for something real.

That’s why film refuses to die.
That’s why old Canon Powershots and beat up digicams are suddenly cool again.
That’s why people are spending stupid money on cameras that were sitting in pawn shops for twenty bucks ten years ago.

We are drowning in content… and starving for authenticity.

Art school drilled composition into my skull.
Breathing room matters.
Balance matters.
Negative space matters.
A photograph should feel intentional—not like somebody held down the shutter and prayed Lightroom would save it later.

And yeah—I know photography is subjective.
I know the family paying for portraits probably isn’t analyzing leading lines and edge tension and whether somebody’s feet got chopped off in the frame.

But I am.
Because that stuff matters.

Human beings are imperfect.
Memory is imperfect.
Life is imperfect.

So maybe the photo should be too.

This frame?
Old Canon Powershot ELPH 190 IS.
Straight-out-of-camera JPG.
No fake sky.
No AI enhancement.
No cinematic preset named after a dead film stock.

Just light. Color.

Here's a Friday flower—doing what flowers have done long before cameras existed.
—

Shot on Canon USA

05/08/2026

Sunset inside Big Bend National Park.
Chihuahuan Desert. Southwest Texas.

I think I finally figured out what keeps pulling me back to places like this.

Yeah—it’s the way light moves across the mountains out here.
The way entire ridgelines catch fire for maybe thirty seconds before fading back into shadow.
Yeah—it’s the silence too. The kind that feels heavy in your chest when the wind dies down.

But I think it’s the solitude more than anything.

You don’t just accidentally end up out here.
This isn’t roadside America.
This isn’t a quick stop between errands.

You choose this place.
You commit to it.
The miles. The heat. The emptiness. The lack of signal. The long roads where sometimes all you hear is your own engine and whatever thoughts you’ve been trying to outrun.

And maybe that’s what makes it feel sacred.

There’s something humbling about standing in a desert older than your problems while the last light of the day drags itself across the rocks like a slow-burning fire.

Or maybe I’m just a hopeless romantic with a camera chasing a frame that probably doesn’t exist.

Either way—sunset out here along the Texas/Mexico border absolutely slaps.

Hard.
—

Shot on Canon USA

Jesse D Poole

05/14/2026

05/13/2026

05/12/2026

05/12/2026

05/11/2026

05/11/2026

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