New Orleans Post-Katrina

In one sense, New Orleans is back to business as usual. In the French Quarter, there was the regular mix of drunken frat guys, distinctive oddballs and run-of-the-mill tourists. And in the Garden District, the most striking site was street after street of gorgeous Victorian houses. 

But then it was also surprising that driving through some of the worst-hit areas in St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward how many houses and businesses were so dilapidated and boarded up, still bearing the spray paint markings from the search and rescue teams. Inside, the houses were completely stripped bare of anything — furniture, toilets, fixtures — of value. It was pretty eerie to think of the people trapped in those homes three years ago and what a mess it must have been.

Wildlife Report

Photo by discarted

We’re keeping a tally of the wildlife we see on the road, and oddly enough, while we’ve been through some pretty remote, and even desolate, areas, not one rattlesnake or coyote. So far the list includes: deer, jackrabbits, cottontails, owls, lizards, a grey fox, one cottonmouth, skunks, spiders, turtles, vultures, eagles, wild turkeys, one black bear with two cubs, a giant millipede, tarantula-like water spiders, alligators, salamanders, skinks and horned lizards. And then there was the endangered Comanche Springs pupfish and the Pecos gambusia in the Balmorhea State Park in Toyhavale, Texas, the only place they’re found in the world.

Unfortunately we’ve come across some dead ones, too (both in New Mexico).

Photo by discarted

Truck Stop Blues

Photo by discarted

Something’s wrong when you start to think $3.85 is cheap.

Divine Inspiration

Our first stop out of LA was Niland, CA, to see Salvation Mountain, Leonard Knight’s 50-foot high, 150-foot wide mound of religious folk art. Located in the Salton Sea area, it was really, really hot (like blistering), but Leonard still showed us around the place, saying he was absolutely “tickled” we had come for a visit. Leonard is funny and quirky and one of a kind. He also loves visitors, and traffic has spiked considerably there since it was featured in the movie Into the Wild.

Now in his 70s, Leonard created the site almost entirely himself out of red clay, except for the occasional help of some teenagers, driven by his unparalleled passion for God. He said he wasn’t much of a believer until he hit 35, when he was compelled to say, “Jesus, I’m a sinner, please come upon my body and into my heart” … and Salvation Mountain is the result.

Highways, Byways and Much, Much More

Photo by let ‘er rip

Today we set out on a cross-country road trip to see some of the great sights the USA has to offer. From Los Angeles to Boston and back again, we’ll get to see this real America everyone talks about, and we’ll be posting some updates from the road. 

In light of that, this piece from NPR seemed especially fitting: Photographer Stephen Shore took a similar journey in 1973, documenting everything from meals to hotel rooms and keeping detailed records in the form of receipts and postcards. His journal was so impressive that it is now being published in book form, called A Road Trip Journal.

Among many notable things about Shore, he sold his first photo to the Museum of Modern Art at 14, published a universally acclaimed book called Uncommon Places, and is widely credited as one of the pioneers of color photography.

Check out a sampling of his very cool photos here.

Listen to NPR’s ”Weekend Edition” interview with Shore here.

London: Take Your Stinking Cameras Elsewhere!

Photo by Brian Auer

Here’s a twist on the usual formula. Instead of being stopped by police while taking a photo, Mohammed Hanif writes in today’s Guardian about being stopped while getting his photo taken on a public street in London.

Hanif was posing for an author photo for a book he had just written when a security guard told them they had to leave. Ultimately they were booted from three other sites before finding a church where no one bothered them.

To London authorities, this type of activity amounts to a security risk and, accordingly, they’ve decided to make the whole process as laborious as possible. The nearly Byzantine rules in place require photographers to not only apply for a permit to shoot on public streets and wait up to a month for approval, but then they have to wear a radio-wave emitting tag while shooting. So they can be tracked.

Hanif asks:

Why would a potential terrorist (or people exhibiting suspect behaviour, as the Met likes to describe them in its anti-terror publicity) pose in front of an organic cosmetics stall and religiously follow the instructions of a white, female professional photographer who looked nothing if not an infidel?

But you see, it’s much easier to enact a very rigid, blanket law to outlaw any and all activity than evaluate cases on an individual basis and allow society to continue under some semblance of normalcy.

UPDATE: Thanks to Byron, who tells us the information in Hanif’s essay about the permit requirement and tracking device are not true and were actually part of an April Fool’s Day joke. Which means, thankfully, we are not living in Orwell’s 1984. Yet.

Article from The Guardian.

Photojournalist’s Snaps of Spill a Security Risk?

Photo by GODa

They do things differently in Texas, but in terms of photographers’ rights, they’re right in line with most states … in squashing them. Galveston County Daily News photographer Kevin M. Cox was taking photos of an oil leak at the Marathon Oil Co. when he was detained by police who questioned him for 45 minutes and asked to see his photos.

In an article in the Daily News, Cpl. Tom Robison defended the Texas City Police Department’s actions, saying it is policy to stop anyone photographing chemical plants so that police can assess what threat, if any, the photos pose to national security. Yes … but: What security risk could a photo possibly present when everything in it is visible to the naked eye from the street? (Cox’s vantage point.)

Robison said it’s not their policy to confiscate photos and they usually work nicely with the press. But they do detain news photographers — documenting news events — for 45 minutes. Go figure.

It’s that pesky constitution thing again. For all those Texans who are staunch defenders of the 2nd amendment that enables them to bear arms, well, they have to respect the 1st too.

Article via The Galveston County Daily News.

Downtown LA: Not Camera-Friendly

Photo by Bryan Villarin

Downtown LA continues to be a difficult place to take photos. We postedon Travis Puderbaugh’s experience at Grand and 3rd a few months back, and now comes this from photographer Bryan Villarin.

Last Thursday Bryan was taking photos of the TCW Tower on 8th and Figueroa when he was stopped by security. Security radioed in for bigger security, and the head guy came out to say Bryan had to stop because the building was “proprietary and is prohibited from being photographed.” I’m still puzzling over that usage of proprietary and I don’t think it really applies to buildings, but anyway, Bryan writes this on his blog:

I mentioned Google Maps and he said that it wasn’t as detailed because it’s a bird’s eye view. (Apparently, he hasn’t heard of Street View. I could see it from the street perfectly — without even being there!)

Bryan left willingly without further incident, but it does make one wonder what’s the big deal.

And, according to skyscraperpage.com, the TCW Tower won the Los Angeles Tall Building Structural Award for  Outstanding Design in 1990. Isn’t it a shame that an award-winning piece of architecture isn’t allowed to be photographed?

Update: Zoriah Miller Story Goes Far and Wide

Both the New York Times and the UK’s Guardian picked up photographer Zoriah Miller’s story, which we posted on last week. Miller lost his embed status in Iraq after posting photos of bodies of marines killed in combat on his blog. (The marines were not identifiable.)

The New York Times piece says that, in contrast to the Vietnam war where the media had much access, five years in Iraq and over 4,000 US military deaths has produced only a handful of graphic images, which is absolutely incredible when you think about it.

From the New York Times:

“It is absolutely censorship,” Mr. Miller said. “I took pictures of something they didn’t like, and they removed me. Deciding what I can and cannot document, I don’t see a clearer definition of censorship.”

It’s nice to see this story finally getting the attention it deserves.

Have We Met…?

Photo by discarted

There are a lot of characters in Los Angeles, and a few places in particular that are magnets for the quirky, offbeat and strange. So I guess it’s no surprise that if you take photos in Venice or Hollywood you might find someone else has also taken a very similar shot of your subject. (There’s a flickr group called Mirrored dedicated to this concept.)

Photo by discarted

Case in point: this guy in Venice who apparently cruises the boardwalk in a wheelchair with his funny little dog perched on his shoulder. He seems to like attention, and he’s out there all the time.

Photo by eedgejr

But, even so, it is slightly stranger when one of your subjects pops up on a flickr member’s page in another city. Oree and Betty were regulars on Hollywood Boulevard, performing with their talking dolls for the passing tourists. Discarted spent a lot of time with them, mostly at their home, your classic fleabag motel room in Hollywood. Literally. After continued harassment from the police, Oree and Betty pulled up stakes and left Hollywood for what they hoped would be the sunnier, friendlier streets of San Diego.

And that’s where edwardmysers40 found them.

Photo by edwardmysers40