Last week, my wife and I were in New Orleans for a business/pleasure trip. I had fully intended to find a model to work with while we were in town. I had visions of a cool fashion editorial with NOLA as the backdrop, but with getting the photography business going and everything leading up to our trip, it just didn't happen. So I was "forced" to be a street photographer for the week. My goal was to capture images that would give people a sense of what it was like to be there; an image that would temporarily transport them to the French Quarter and evoke some sort of feeling or emotion. To me, this is the art of photography.
I managed to get several images that had an impact on me. Of all the photos I created, this is the ONE that I keep coming back to. I actually think it is quite beautiful. Weird? Yeah, maybe so...but I am really drawn to it. This is Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. I would venture to say that more than half of the people on this street are at various stages of intoxication. It is party central. It is a sensory overload. The street is buzzing (literally). You hear music, laughter, yelling, begging, barking...it's a noisy place. You smell food and alcohol and occasionally get a whiff of pot and sometimes vomit (unfortunately). But the street has a personality all of it's own.
So what is it about this image? Well there is the crowd in living color, coming and going. They are not focussed on us, so there is no focus on them. The focus is on the silver mime. If you stare at him long enough the others really start to fade away. We are just left with this him; the silver mime giving us a resounding F/U. Why do I like this guy so much? Maybe we have all felt that way before. It certainly would sum up my attitude as an angry, rebellious teenager. But, we have all felt this way in certain situations as adults. Maybe we couldn't quite express it this way without getting fired, or starting a fight, or getting arrested. C'mon now...be honest, you have felt this way before. So maybe we are drawn to the silver mime because he is saying it for us. Right there, out in the open, for all the world to see. Of all the people coming and going in this image, he is the only one that sees us and the one thing he wants to say is "F/U"!
It makes me laugh. I hope you can see the humor in it as well. There are more images to come from our trip to NOLA, so stay tuned and follow the blog.
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