NATCHEZ &8212; Hurricane Katrina could not have happened at a worse time for Tim Isbell. Already challenged by a busy life as a photographer for the now Pulitzer-prize winning Biloxi Sun Herald, he had other pressing deadlines.

Two books were in the works with University Press of Mississippi &8212; &8220;Vicksburg: Sentinels of Stone&8221; and &8220;Gettysburg: Sentinels of Stone.&8221;

One of the first e-mails he received after the storm was from University Press. Are you OK? Is your house OK? And then: Can you meet your deadlines?

&8220;I wasn&8217;t going to let Katrina let me miss my deadlines,&8221; Isbell said. Newspaper work kept him busy 12 to 14 hours a day. He and his wife, Judy, also a journalist, had a house full of people who needed shelter.

Still, he put another three to four hours into the book every day. &8220;I&8217;m goal oriented, and this was a long-term goal.&8221;

Indeed, Isbell was 10 when he first saw the Vicksburg National Military Park. The impact was immediate and would remain and grow in his life.

&8220;Not long after that first visit to Vicksburg, my mother took me to the library in Jackson,&8221; Isbell said. &8220;I checked out my first book.&8221;

It was &8220;The Last Cavalier&8221; by J.E.B. Stuart. He devoured all books he could find on the Civil War, during his young years concentrating only on books about the South.

As he matured, he began to read about Union generals and soldiers and gained a great respect for both sides that fought in the war.

The Vicksburg monuments were a natural draw as he walked the hilly terrain and put his knowledge of the history with the picturesque setting. Of course he would make photographs there.

Isbell credits his wife for the idea of a book. &8220;From when we first started dating, we always like to go to Vicksburg,&8221; he said. &8220;Then one spring she said, &8216;let&8217;s go to Gettysburg.&8217;&8221;

Like Vicksburg, the Pennsylvania battlefield tugged at his heart. &8220;We drove around and I said, &8216;this was happening here when that was happening in Vicksburg,&8217;&8221;

Judy threw out the challenge, he said. &8220;Why don&8217;t you write a book?&8221;

The two books have been under way for about 10 years, Isbell said. That includes the year 1999, when both he and Judy worked at The Natchez Democrat.

&8220;One picture at Gettysburg I shot four different years,&8221; he said. Nevertheless, the photographs were coming together. The text was coming slowly until one day a Sun Herald reporter said to him, &8220;It&8217;s not going to be a book until there&8217;s words with it.&8221;

She was right, Isbell said. And he did not want someone else to write the text. &8220;I wanted it to be my book.&8221;

He went home that night and began the text, which tells stories of the generals but also of the average soldiers and the other people whose lives were touched by the war.

&8220;Photography is my comfort zone, but I&8217;ve always been a writer, too,&8221; he said.

Judy was his copy editor. &8220;And I credit her for getting me started and keeping me going,&8221; he said.

Then, as he said about the recovery on the Gulf Coast after Katrina, &8220;one day, one tree, one miracle at a time,&8221; he saw his books completed, one day, one photograph, one page at a time.

The two battlefields are the best of all the Civil War sites, Isbell said. But he is moving on to photograph others and, in fact, already has completed a book on Shiloh.

&8220;Vicksburg and Gettysburg are the pinnacles,&8221; he said. And visiting those sites is like going home. &8220;It&8217;s like visiting family.&8221;

Isbell will be in Natchez to sign books at Turning Pages Books & More on May 27.