The Beautiful People

Please, stop having fun on the photo shoot.

I worked with stylist and writer Valorie Hart, and chef Ryan Hughs, to create a Winter Entertaining cover feature for New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles.  It felt more like a party than a job. The house, and its renovation, are so good that we ended up featuring it in the following issue for the Renovation of the Year .

 

Private Property

I woke up before dawn last week to drive upriver. I was shooting a story about haunted plantations (apparently they all are haunted) and I saw this charming scene at a plantation next door to Oak Alley. I pulled over to capture it and wouldn't you know, and old lady in a white Cadillac pulled in after me to yell at me: This is Private Property!
Phooey.

Mo Meauxbar, please.

Meauxbar, on the edge of the quarter on Rampart St. was always one of my favorite restaurants. (Except the time the waiter kicked over my tripod and my camera hit the tile floor. He hid in the kitchen. Seriously). Recently the business was bought by the same people who ran Ste Marie, and pretty much moved the whole restaurant staff over. The resulting restaurant is comfortably familiar, but a bit spiffed up, and the food is resplendent - not surprising from the lovely and talented Kristin Essig.

The above shot is an outtake from our ongoing Scout Guide shoots. The following is the first time I photographed Kristin, at Ste Marie, in July 2013. How cute is she??

Emmy's Light

I was finished with her shot, I thought. Then she started playing with the diffusion ring and held it up behind her back with the sun behind her. I will use this trick again.

Wine from Above

Here's what happened:
On my daily walk, I had been passing this old fence that was falling down, and absolutely coveting it. I knew the beautiful silver blue tones would make a gorgeous surface. Weeks go by.  Finally, one day I see a sign for a fence company in the yard. Next day, the old fence is laying on the curb. I speedwalk home, call my friend with the truck and...

If you look carefully, you can see 2 Katrina floodwater lines in a yellowish hue. This fence is starting its next life with me. We're going to have lots of fun together.

ART + COMMERCE

Chef + Owner/Bon Vivant + GM + paintings by Louis St. Lewis from Gallery Orange at Le Foret.
Shot for the New Orleans Scout Guide Vol. 3. This will likely be an outtake but I love that they were up for this.

Summer. Spontaneous.

My favorite thing about shooting kids is their complete lack of self consciousness. They'll never scrutinize a photo to see if their arms look fat or their tummy looks poochy.. They don't care.

I'm shooting a summer campaign for Arnauds, and without giving too much away, well, it involves shrimp.

Miss Linda, the Ya Ka Mein Lady, is an Angel

Today I received a phone call from Miss Linda, thanking me for (her words) the beautiful photo of her ya ka mein on the cover of Where Y'at Magazine. Her sincerity and kindness made my week. She's a treasure.

Client in repose

Sometimes when I'm shooting - well, any photographer can say this - I turn around and see something irrelevant but beautiful.

Seafood Platter's Reincarnation

When I was little, one of my favorite restaurants in New Orleans was Frankie & Johnny's, down by Tchoupitoulas. My mother would take me and we would split a seafood platter. After I turned 21, this would invariably be washed down by an ice cold Dixie beer. Heaven for about 20 bucks total. It slowly started to degrade in the 90s; (my all-time low there was, at age 22, having my credit card declined and not having any other money, but that's a different story.) It eventually closed - I can't remember exactly when, but fairly recently, suffering from dire infrastructure problems.
Fast forward to now. It's been reopened by new owners, spiffed up, and, most importantly, the food is the same as it was way back when: perfect fry, big portions, low total bill. BUT, the coolest thing is they have brought back a lot of the old staff. I remember Terrie from my check-bouncing days.