This just in: I was just notified that this collage has been accepted into the upcoming Paraphrase show at the New Orleans Darkroom Gallery.  The show is features work “paraphrasing, spoofing, caricaturing, parodying or lampooning icons of photography” and is juried by John H. Lawrence, director of museum programs at the Historic New Orleans Collection.  The show opens with a reception on Saturday October 4, 6-8pm.

My collage is a spoof on Ansel Adams entitled, “Mr. Negativity.”  Adams, who you all know because at least one of your stockings over the years has been stuffed with a calendar featuring his landscapes from Yosemite and Yellowstone, developed the 10-point Zone System for exposure and development and wrote a series of technical books on photographic processes – including one entitled, “The Negative.”

What a day:

A successful first time visit to a small church in the Bywater, complete with fiery Southern Baptist preacher, Hammond organ, old hymns, and congregation hand-holdin’.  Only thing missing was the chicken.

Bad coffee, bad breakfast and great hipster watching at Flora’s in the Marigny

An afternoon thunderstorm, lasting as long as it took to bake a pizza in the oven.

Finishing the latest Dave Eggers book, Zeitoun.

3 gin & tonics.

4 rolls of film.

Discovering a previously undocumented Banksy mural.

Meeting a professional crawfish boiler, 2 goths, a doorman, and a fellow photographer while on a walk through the Quarter.

Chocolate milk after midnight.

Here’s a iphone photo from this week’s pilgrimage visit to the Maple St. Bookshop, only one of the many black and white 8×10’s pinned to the bookshelves and walls throughout the store.  In the photo below Percy is writer-photographer-Mississippian, Eudora Welty.

Writing once again from our perch above the Garden District.  After a beautiful bike ride in the rain through the CBD to the farmer’s market the clouds have begun to part and the hot hot sun is peeking out for the first time today.  I can see a slight mist still falling in the air.  A puddle on the porch is reflecting a moving, morphing, amoeba-like shape onto the porch ceiling, and little silver raindrops hang onto the bulbs of the strand lights looped around the balcony irons.  Once they fall, its three stories down and onto a driveway full of old bicycles and garbage cans.  The best thing of all is that it is under 90 degrees and after noon, and there is a slight breeze.  A reprieve.  

The past few days have been good.  Have begun shooting with a rangefinder when not carrying the medium formats.  First picture made yesterday was of a woman, who couldn’t have been a day younger than 302, who was walking in front of the nearby cemetery and wore a HUGE straw hat.  I told her I liked her hat, wanted to make a picture and she said, “OK, whatever, just make it snappy.”  I replied with a thank you, made a frame, and she said dryly, “Hope that wins you a prize.”

Next frames were made at the Maple Street Bookshop uptown.  I knew the shop had ties to Percy, but had no idea the place was a veritable shrine to the man.  Percy was friends with the owner and used to shop for books there when he taught at nearby Loyola.  He also would do book signings and must’ve posed for well over a million pictures with the owner and her family.  One cant walk two feet without hitting a bookshelf or a picture of Walker.  They even had postcards.  I bought six.

Last night we visited St. Francisville, the former capitol city of the Republic of West Florida and home to America’s most haunted house, The Myrtles.  Sppoooookkyy.  More on St. Francisville in a future post – lots of Percy connections there.  Our hopes of staying in a roadside hotel were dashed when all there was to be found was a $95 a night Quality Inn, so we drove back to NOLA, slept well, and began the day with the bike ride.  

A show, born out of this current project and involving current students and recent grads from Corcoran College of Art+Design: