The Mississippi Delta 22: Sunflower

Sunflower playground - where are the children?

Sunflower is another small town in the west central Mississippi Delta. According to the 2000 census (as cited in Wikipedia), it had only 669 residents. I have driven through only twice and saw only a few photographic opportunities.

Delta Ave. was the former commercial block, consisting of brick shops similar to those in other Delta towns.

Russell Grocery on Quiver Street was open. The proprietor generously let me take a couple of photographs. He said he was doing his best to keep the store in operation. It was immaculately clean. I noticed that most of the food was in the form of fast food and soft drinks - the curse of the Mississippi diet.

Other grocery stores had occupied the building in the past.

At Haley's Floral Center, also on Quiver Street, the ladies invited me in and showed me some of the floral arrangements. They were very gracious. Such kind people, but it must be a difficult life in a small town. What can they do professionally other than move away? But that inevitably would mean mean leaving family behind.

The first two photographs were taken with a Fuji GW690II camera on Kodak Panatomic-X film. The remaining photographs are from a Fuji X-E1 digital camera.