No big photo opportunities

A couple of weeks ago, I was given an assignment for the New York Times. It's a travel piece that waxes nostalgic about the literary lives that have tripped through the city, and its surrounds. Tennessee Williams, William Falkner, Walker Percy. Etc.

It was a particularly tricky thing to illustrate, considering the whole crux of the piece is that you can no longer literally find the places that once inspired these great writers:

There are no signposts, no big photo opportunities. Just a unique and, for me, magical way of being in the world.

 I woke up before dawn, and wandered the quarter, and later drove out to Laura plantation.
 I photographed the sites that were mentioned in the piece, but found myself drawn, as we all are, to the abstract surfaces.