Color My Missives

Here are a couple of my best shots from New Orleans. I didn’t get around to posting them earlier, mainly because I wanted to enjoy them myself for awhile. As for reflections on the place itself, there are many. The richness of the speech might be the first that comes to mind. I overheard a man chatting with the clerk at the counter of a convenience store. In expressing a resigned “what can you do” kind of sentiment, the following words came from his mouth:

Now that Johnnie Cochran’s dead, I guess I can’t cut nobody.

He knew that the space between the words of customers and clerks was not designed for cleverness, and it was there he chuckled to himself quietly before the conversation veered in another direction. “Ain’t gonna be another Johnnie,” he said, picking up his bags, “y’all take care.”

When me and the Demon Doctor get together, there’s an element of silly fun that pervades all interactions. The battle of sunglasses is a new wrinkle to the proceedings.

While last Friday’s trip down the bayou will require a more expansive treatment in text and pictures, let it be stated unequivocally that my taste for idiosyncratic cars and signage remains as strong as my penchant for photographing walls with people in front of them.

Call this an expansion of the painted sky theory espoused previously. This one is from Central Florida, and taken at the appropriate hour. There is simply no cloud that looks like this hovering over any part of NYC or the boroughs.

Oh, and I can’t get enough of shooting things on this floor apparently.

Walking home, I saw these scenes and ran to grab my camera, hoping to get back on time.

There’s a point at which the natural light has faded such that artificial light is just as bright. It is a fertile moment for photography. Unfortunately, I was about five minutes too late when I snapped these — there would be less noise in the pictures had I been on time. A subtle visual articulation of the clouds is the hallmark of that special hour.