There is nowhere else on earth quite like New Orleans.
Not the music alone. Not the food. Not the streets. But all of it together — a feast for every sense, a culture so specific to this one place that it cannot be exported or replicated.
I came twice — 2008 and 2010 — drawn by the New Orleans Jazz Festival and what lived beyond its stages. The Second Line. The Mardi Gras Indians in their magnificent regalia — costumes hand-sewn over an entire year, never worn twice.
But what I photographed was not the feathers or the beadwork.
It was their faces. Their eyes. The human being living beneath the grand and pompous costume — voicing an interior world of identity, roots and joy that has survived everything this city has survived.
Like Brazil has its Carnival. Like Venice has its own. New Orleans has this. And it belongs to no one else.
Selected prints available below
There is nowhere else on earth quite like New Orleans.
Not the music alone. Not the food. Not the streets. But all of it together — a feast for every sense, a culture so specific to this one place that it cannot be exported or replicated.
I came twice — 2008 and 2010 — drawn by the New Orleans Jazz Festival and what lived beyond its stages. The Second Line. The Mardi Gras Indians in their magnificent regalia — costumes hand-sewn over an entire year, never worn twice.
But what I photographed was not the feathers or the beadwork.
It was their faces. Their eyes. The human being living beneath the grand and pompous costume — voicing an interior world of identity, roots and joy that has survived everything this city has survived.
Like Brazil has its Carnival. Like Venice has its own. New Orleans has this. And it belongs to no one else.
Selected prints available below
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