Drying out his home after Hurricane Katrina, Nick Louque takes a cigarette break.

We buried my father-in-law last week on a typical rainy New Orleans afternoon.  Nick Louque (pronounced ‘luke’) was only 68.

I brought a camera along on the journey as my kids and dog piled into our mini van and headed south.  I really had no intention on using it, but rarely travel anywhere without at least one Canon.

I’m so glad I brought it along.

Hours after arriving at Nick’s home and after my wife, her mother and siblings returned from making funeral arrangements, we decided it would be nice to have a slideshow to play at the wake.  We planned to scan pictures out of family photo albums - but quickly realized it would be quicker to copy them with my camera, tone them in Photoshop and get right to work.  A hundred or so photographs copied, a few Andrew Lloyd Webber songs downloaded and a quick burn through iDVD and we were done.

I’m so glad I brought it along.

What about bringing the camera to the funeral?  There were so many other things worry about - my wife, my kids, my mother-in-law.  Again, I had no intention on using it but it found a place in the mini van.

Fully planning to be a pallbearer, on a hunch I asked if Nick would be better remembered if I took photographs instead.  As a Navy veteran, there would be an honor guard, a bugler playing TAPS.

As a photojournalist, I’ve covered dozens of funerals and memorials through the years, those of firefighters and policemen, governors and presidents - all newsworthy in one way or another.  Yet Nick was an ordinary man - loved by his wife and family, respected by his submarine veteran buddies from the U.S.S. Robert E. Lee.  And those photographs would provide the same memories for our family.

I’m so glad I brought it along.