Thursday March 27, 2008

Today we woke up at 8:30am and took the street car all the way up to the end of the track. At the end of the track is four or five cemeteries. We went to Cypress Cemetery, St. Patrick Cemetery #2. By the time that we finished those 2 cemeteries and decided to head out and grab some lunch, were we meet up with Jodie and Maria. We then went back to the hotel and edited my images right before we had the critique. The critique was a one on one with Brett our teacher.


After the critique four of us went out to dinner.

Wednesday March 26, 2008

Today was another shooting day; along with another tour this one was from the Lafayette Cemetery No. 1. This tour started at 10:30am and is only given on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays. It was a very interesting tour; there was a lot of history in that cemetery. Such as the grave of Hugh Grant haha that was a joke they told us, and we also saw the grave were a famous case Plessey vs. Ferguson, well we saw were Ferguson is buried. It was interesting because yesterday we saw were Plessey was buried. Plessey is buried in St. Louis Cemetery.
After the tour Caitlin and I went and photographed the cemetery on our own for about an hour. We then left the cemetery and caught the street car back down to Canal Street were we had lunch and took the other street car up to the another couple of cemeteries.
We walked around at least two or three more cemeteries when we were dropped off. We then photographed for about an hour and hoped back on to the street car and went back to the hotel where we uploaded our images and did a very informal critique but had a great amount of feed back.
Once done with that a group of us went to dinner at Big Al’s Seafood, were I tried a fresh oyster,
a boiled crawfish and my dinner which was fried crab fingers. I have to say that the crawfish and the fingers were not the best thing that I had ever had and would probably not get it again. The crab fingers were like the claw end but just the meat. I would not recommend it. The oyster was good it just slid right down the back of your throat.

After dinner Brittany and I went and sat in the pool for about an hour or so. The pool is so nice it is heated and very relaxing and that is just what I needed after shooting for five hours today my face got a lot of sun. It feels so good to be in nice sunny degree weather.

Tuesday March 25, 2008

Today was the first actual days of shooting, it all started off with the wake up call at 7:30am. After getting ready I went down to get the free breakfast, however we realized that we were running late for the tour at 9am since we had to walk to the tour bus. So we ate our breakfast on the run.
We arrived at the tour with 15 minutes to spare; the tour was the St. Louis Cemetery, it holds the three graves of the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans. It was really interesting to understand the superstition of the grave. Apparently you draw three X’s on the face plate, knock three times, turn around, tap with your foot a couple times and then leave an offering such as a cigarette, cigar, alcohol, and or pennies. We walked around there for a couple of hours shooting.
After getting back to the hotel, the whole group went and talked to the curator of an art museum where he gave us a behind the scene tour. He showed us images from many famous photographers some at which had never been printed before, such as Eggleston, Walker Evans and a few others.
While walking back to hotel a few of us decided to go out to Bourbon Street and get some lunch. Where for the first time I had Alligator, it was really good; it was kind of tough at some parts but it extremely good. The restaurant was called La Bayou I also got a drink called a Hurricane, and I also got to keep the glass! ha. Where after that we meet up with a guy named “Kiss” he was a friend of Caitlin.
After our critique a group of us went out and experienced New Orleans on Bourbon Street. Partying down there on Bourbon Street was an unbelievable time.

Monday March 24, 2008

Today was the first day of the New Orleans trip. It started with an alarm going off at 2:30am. We had to be at the airport at 4am because we flew out at 6am. We arrived in Dallas at 8am and after a 2 hour layover we flew on to New Orleans. Once we landed at 11:20am we picked up the rental cars and headed off to the hotel.
The hotel is something you really cannot explain it is just beautiful, the room that myself and Anthony have I would say at least 20 foot ceilings. And a wall that is part brick and part stucco. Once we all got settled in I went to lunch, I went to lunch with Brittany, Stephanie and Amanda. We went to Gordon Biersch; it was a brewery that was a couple of blocks away. After lunch the 16 of us went on a tour of New Orleans.
It was a two hour tour that took us around and showed us were the levees broke and where they were repaired. The tour took us around to the Ninth Ward, and the other parts of the town that were impacted by the flood. The images below are from that time. I was shooting in the bus through the windows. It was okay until I say a house that had a 1 in the bottom of the X, and what that means is that there as body found in the house. That was when it really got to me. Once the tour was over we all came back and had a break.
Brittany and I laid out by the pool, since it is heated pool it really felt good. All we did was put our feet in the water laid back. There was always a water fountain when made it very relaxing. We all went and had dinner at two different restaurants one group went to Bulldogs while the other one went to Nacho Mamas. It was a lot of fun I had probably the best Bloody Mary I had ever had. They used real horseradish and topped it off with green beans. It was a very exhausting day and I can not wait to see what the rest of the week brings.
Tomorrow a group of us are going on a tour of St. Louis Cemetery at 9am. This is when I am going to start my series and will upload tomorrow.