New Orleans, A Gallery of Fine Photography, and Carbon

Dear All,
I just got back from an incredible trip to New Orleans. I went down there
to document the damage, and thought I might need a local or such to bring me
to the damaged places. What was I thinking??? It was EVERYWHERE. Hundreds
of square miles. I still cannot believe it--it might be equivalent to
taking the whole city of Minneapolis and razing it to the ground--but even
worse. Joe Tomasovsky, this is why I didn't have to call you while there..I
didn't even touch the surface of what I could document.

When they talk about still coming up with dead bodies, once you see the
devastation you realize how that can be. There are houses collapsed
EVERYWHERE that could easily hide the dead. Tom and I were able to enter
some houses and photograph, and the smell of putrifying freezer food is
still in my nostrils.

Tom and I photographed every day the entire week, and continued to be
saddened every day. We drove the coastline from New Orleans to Mobile---no
more Biloxi, no Gulfport, no Pass Christian, no Bay St. Louis. Gorgeous
huge homes no longer there. The news did not and cannot do it justice. It
will easily take a decade to get back to normalcy, and I could only liken it
to something like the San Francisco fire (1905?) or even worse. A great read
is 1 Dead in Attic by Chris Rose. I only hope my photographs can tell the
tale to my students and others, but my guess is, they can't--video or film
would do better.

Interestingly, 3 of my students were in the area, on their spring break,
helping with clean up, along with 4000 other students from across the
nation.

I could go on and on but I have to keep this photographically related. Oh,
just one more point--the sliver of the French Quarter, albeit damaged, is
alive and well, and the best mint juleps in the world are at Pat O'Brien's
where I had a wonderful time talking with the very Irish bartender about his
Nikons...and the catfish, shrimp, gumbo, and crawfish in the area are still
as good as ever.

A wonderful benefit was to hook up (not in the present day jargon) with
listee Terry Lindquist from Daphne Alabama. He gave us a wonderful tour of
the east coastline of Mobile Bay--no wonder people live there. I would have
spent more time with Terry had the hotel in Foley not lost my 4 day
reservation and no rooms otherwise available in the area. I just love the
fact that the list brings together such a unique mixture of people all in
love with photography. Terry just retired from teaching for 40 years!

One of the highlights of the trip was going to A Gallery of Fine Photography
in the French Quarter, still alive and well, although greatly affected by
such things as few grocery stores, slow postal service, tourism decimated,
hospitals few and far between, etc. etc. They have a website, and we have
talked about them before on this list. I saw original prints by Fox Talbot,
Kuehn, Cameron, and the Helmut Newtons and Jan Saudeks in person were
exquisite--HUGE.

For those digitally minded, there was an awesome Sandy Skoglund in there
that was her first foray into "pigment" printing. HUGE also. Digital
happens to the best of us, and, frankly, it was as beautiful as her
cibachromes.

I got to spend an hour or two just shootin' the photo bull with a wonderful
man named Edward Hebert, in there who has worked there 13 years and knew
everything, even the hot gossip. He was absolutely gracious. In fact, he
was the one that mapped out the Ground Zeros of the city.

At this gallery I saw the most amazing tricolor carbon print--if i had had
$12,000 I would have bought it. I can now understand why tricolor carbon is
just... beyond words. It still exhibits a relief. It was by a man named
Rene Pauli who went to the grave 6 years ago with his secrets, as he died of
a heart attack while carbon printing. If I can be so lucky to die of a
heart attack while making gum prints--not from drinking dichromate of
course....did anyone know him personally?
Chris
Received on Sat Mar 18 20:33:16 2006