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.