New Orleans street sequences use photography to create a map of time. These are not descriptions of space but the topography of moments. I use the camera frame to parse the field of time into polygons of experiences. These images are intended to be read and examined in all of their detail. I’ve been shooting in New Orleans since 1991til this year of Covid-19. These are the daydreams of a lost observer.
Each fragment is shot with a hand-held camera without seeing the whole picture through its viewfinder. Relying on intuition I anticipate the next moment that will make sense to the composite image that forms inside of me. Sequences take as long as twenty minutes or as fast as I can walk backwards in front of the oncoming marching band. All the while I keep my left eye to the viewfinder registering one image to the next. It feels like a long stare I cannot disengage until the episode passes.
New Orleans is more than a place -- Mardi Gras marches in step and to the rhythm of oblivion, while desperately trying to hold onto its past with ritual, ceremony and the parade. I lose myself in the crowd and allow it to carry me away. As I swim up and down the streets, I am able move back and forth across time.