New Orleans, Louisiana    
New Orleans, Louisiana, NOLA for short, is a truly unique city, and one that has quickly became one of those destinations for me which I must visit at every possible opportunity. I first visited New Orleans during the 2007 Jazz and Heritage Festival, and have dedicated jazzfestblog.com to that event.
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Absinthe, New Orleans | 2007-10-28

By now, I am adequately confused about wormwood and legality and pretty much everything else in regards to absinthe consumption in the U.S. I am pretty clear on the fact though, that when properly poored, it is a pretty awesome experience just to watch it even. Hope you'll agree.

Absinthe, New Orleans
Cafe Negril, New Orleans | 2007-09-29

In any other town, Cafe Negril would have been our last stop, on the account of the late hour. But in New Orleans the rock-a-blues band, whose name escapes me at the moment only whetted our appetite, well, rather our thirst, to continue on 'til the not-wee-anymore hours of the morning. This was, perhaps understandably my last coherent image for the day . . .

Cafe Negril, New Orleans
Holt Cemetery, New Orleans | 2007-09-29

Holt is - I believe - the only in-ground cemetery in New Orleans, and the one predominantly for the poor. Unlike the others, unprotected by marble blocks, it massively shows its abandonment and decay. Holt Cemetery, nevertheless will leave you evermore touched by the color spots of its ordinary memorabilia hangin on its crosses and stones like cheap trinkets on the girls at the tavern by the tracks on a Saturday night. Heartening and beautiful, where you would least expect to find it.

Holt Cemetery, New Orleans
Pat O Brien's, New Orleans | 2007-09-28

Pat O'Brien's is a landmark of the sorts you expect to be filled with formidable old folk, and perhaps ordinarily it is, but as early as we started, mostly nobody should be and hardly anybody is in bars most anywhere. Well, we got great stories from the bartender this way, a fellow photographer with a considerable portfolio. I wouldn't do justice to describing the mood without mentioning the sounds of the twin sing along pianos coming from next door, from a room yet darker than this one - if you can imagine that.

Pat O Brien's, New Orleans
St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans | 2007-09-28

So here's to prove that we weren't only drinking, but visited sights in between the watering holes. Now where exactly they keep that wine in here, we never did figure out. But then again, I was concentrating heavily on balancing my monopod several feet above my head, anchored in a somewhat obscene looking, protruding leather attachment on my belt.

St. Louis Cathedral, New Orleans
Molly's At The Market, New Orleans | 2007-09-27

Little did I know about the long history of Molly's at the Market when I was already anticipating my late night bloody mary coming off the airplane, so many of which I enjoyed here during my visit at Jazzfest time, earlier this year. But, really that's the only kind of history you need to wanna come back here for more. Now, supposedly the ashes of the belated founding proprietor are somewhere in there above the register, but since I only found out about it after my return to Baltimore, I cannot make it out in the panorama with certainty. Can you?

Molly's At The Market, New Orleans
Lower 9th Ward - New Orleans, Louisiana | 2007-05-03

A year and a half after Katrina, there's still not much life in the lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Visiting the area for the first time, the devastation hit me as hard as the news of the storm as it happened. Many lots are empty, others try to hang on to the roots of the walls as the rest of the buildings are collapsing upon them. Grass and weed has overgrown most everything along with the connecting walkways. Many street signs are hand written planks, but most of them are still missing, although new traffic lights have been installed on a couple of corners for the drive through traffic.

Yet, from the decay and rubbish comes art. Will life imitate its colors in the lower 9th Ward?

Lower 9th Ward - New Orleans, Louisiana
Street Musicians - New Orleans, Louisiana | 2007-05-02

" . . . Had a very slow start, visited with some pals in the Uptown area, tried to find a free music festival on Frenchmen St. that had Willie Nelson’s imprimatur and a solar-powered stage but the musicians, like us, were beat. As of mid-way through the festival’s schedule, only 1 band had played. So K and I actually went home and took a well-deserved nap while Andras prowled the French Quarter for photos . . ." - Alicia Ault from our Jazz Fest Blog

. . . and I did find these guys playing on a corner. Slighlty off key, at that, but with impecable spirit, both of which can likely be explained by the quickly depleted case of Red Dog in front them . . .

Street Musicians - New Orleans, Louisiana
St. Roch Cemetery, New Orleans | 2007-05-01

"We had an interesting education later that day at St. Roch cemetery, on St. Roch Ave. in the Upper 9th Ward. St. Roch was the patron saint of miraculous cures. There’s a chapel with a small side shrine to lost limbs. The grotto-like area was covered with plaster casts of feet, discarded prostheses and orthotic braces. It was very eery.

The cemetery itself was clean and well-kept, despite being a block from a FEMA trailer park and in the middle of a largely-abandoned neighborhood. I asked a caretaker on the way out whether they’d had any of the floodwaters and he told me about 4 feet and offered to show me a picture. The cemetery actually looked almost more beautiful in the picture, despite being under a few feet of slop from Lake Ponchartrain and the Industrial Canal. The caretaker said they’d only lost 2 bodies out of the crypts, but they actually only floated around within the cemetery walls, so they were recovered after the waters receded and were put back in their rightful tombs." - Alicia Ault, from our Jazz Fest Blog

St. Roch Cemetery, New Orleans
Chapel of Lost Limbs, New Orleans | 2007-05-01

"We had an interesting education later that day at St. Roch cemetery, on St. Roch Ave. in the Upper 9th Ward. St. Roch was the patron saint of miraculous cures. There's a chapel with a small side shrine to lost limbs. The grotto-like area was covered with plaster casts of feet, discarded prostheses and orthotic braces. It was very eery" - Alicia Ault, from our Jazz Fest Blog

Chapel of Lost Limbs, New Orleans
Bayou - Jean Lafitte, Louisiana | 2007-05-01

Jean Lafitte is a Cajun fishing village on Bayou Barataria nearby New Orleans, Louisiana. The village got its name after the privateer Jean Lafitte. With population of a mere 2000+, the village nevertheless is a tourist attraction for a beautiful state park bayou walk among the crocs.

Bayou - Jean Lafitte, Louisiana
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