06-DEC-2012
Napoleon, Oak Alley Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana, 2012
A bust of Napoleon Bonaparte still sits upon the piano in the living room of Oak Alley’s “Big House.” The French Emperor was, in effect, Oak Alley’s prior landlord, until he sold all of Louisiana and much of the American west to Thomas Jefferson in 1804. A curtain in the background creates a gauzy tent-like effect, which I found appropriate for a man who spent much of his professional life living in battlefield tents. I squeeze the Emperor between that “tent” and the Christmas greens that seem to offer him a safe haven.
06-DEC-2012
A haunted place, Oak Alley Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana, 2012
This doll in Oak Alley’s Nursery was cradled among gauze curtains. It is wearing an original dress that spans the centuries. I saw it as a symbol for the young children who must have once lived and perhaps died in this very room over the first 130 years of its existence. Many believe Oak Alley is haunted. Some employees claim to have heard the weeping of a woman or a child at night in the vicinity of this room. I post-processed this photograph to age the image, stressing its peripheral shadows and removing the warmth of its colors. In doing so, I was able to emphasize what appear to be tears upon the doll’s face.
06-DEC-2012
Slave cabin, Laura Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana, 2012
Laura Plantation was built in 1804, the very year that Louisiana became part of the United States. It is unique because six of its slave quarters, built over 160 years ago, still remain. I was able to enter one of them and make this photograph of the fabrics, baskets, bowls, and pottery that survive to this day. The contrast between the rich colors and the grim surroundings is striking.
06-DEC-2012
Decay, Laura Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana, 2012
One of the greatest advantages of visiting the Laura Plantation is that many of its original buildings are still standing, most of them as ruins. While the manor house itself has been carefully restored, other structures speak of the passage of time itself and the toll that nature has taken upon them. This outbuilding, which once housed tools and materials, stands only a few yards from the main structure. Its walls are decaying, the boards broken and etched in moss. This image shows only a small portion of the building, but it serves to represent the condition of the whole. It gives us a more realistic look at the age of the building than a restoration ever could.
06-DEC-2012
Asleep, Laura Plantation, Vacherie, Louisiana, 2012
Touring plantation after plantation takes its toll on tourists. I found one of them catching a quick nap on the porch of Laura Plantation’s gift shop. I contrast his relaxed posture to other tourists who chat just around the corner of the building. A massive jar separates the conscious from the unconscious here. Meanwhile, the patterns and colors of the wooden siding and porch flooring tie the entire image together as a work of geometry.
07-DEC-2012
Oil Platforms, Gulf of Mexico, 2012
Our river cruise dramatically changed its character as we left the Mississippi River Delta behind and moved into the Gulf of Mexico. We followed a prescribed course through the Gulf from New Orleans to Pensacola, Florida. We were rarely out of sight of the massive off shore oil platforms that loomed through the mist. I placed two of them into this frame as we cruised past them at dusk. I contrast both scale and visibility here. One is large, the other small. One is clearly defined while the other seems lost in the fog. A flame glows at the top of a tower on the closest platform, flaring away unusable gas drawn to the surface along with oil. Oil platforms such as these may be essential economic machines, however the flame glowing above this tower reminds us of the risks involved when fire and oil are present. Not far from here, a BP platform exploded in 2010, killing eleven people, and polluting the Gulf of Mexico with twenty million gallons of oil – the worst spill in US history.
08-DEC-2012
Welcoming committee, Pensacola, Florida, 2012
This Brown Pelican, draped over a railing, lethargically greeted us as we arrived at Pensacola, Florida, our first port in the Gulf. I liked the horizontal thrust of the railing, the incongruously limpid posture of the bird. This image is a good example of how selective focusing can help organize a photograph. Using a long telephoto lens (375mm), I focused on the pelican, throwing both the foreground and the background out of focus. The pelican is the only sharply defined object in the picture, and seems to be luxuriating on the softly focused fencing.
08-DEC-2012
Wings of the past, National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida, 2012
In Pensacola, we toured one of the largest aviation museums in the world. We viewed more than 150 different planes, many of them suspended in simulated flight from the ceiling of this museum. In this photograph, I incorporate three naval planes that flew their missions during the early years of the 20th century. The huge tail at right belongs to the only surviving Curtiss floatplane, the NC-4. In 1919, it became the first plane to fly across the Atlantic, stopping twice in the Azores on the way from Newfoundland to Lisbon. The plane was given by the Navy to the Smithsonian after its return to the US but was too large to be displayed there. It is now on loan to Pensacola’s museum.
08-DEC-2012
Vintage warrior, National Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida, 2012
Many of the historic naval aircraft on display at the museum are poised along the tarmac of the museums own airstrip. I found this early jet fighter crouched in the shadows, and used my spot meter to expose for the bright reflection on its nose. By converting the photo to black and white, I make the plane into an abstraction, a shadow of its former fearsome self.
08-DEC-2012
The Blue Angels, National Naval Aviation Museum, Pensacola, Florida, 2012
The Blue Angels make up the United States Navy’s flight demonstration squadron. Formed in 1946, the Angels are the second oldest formal flying aerobatic team in the world. Over the last 66 years, the Blue Angels have flown before more than 250 million spectators. The Pensacola Naval Air Station is the squadron’s home base, and the nearby National Naval Aviation Museum’s most impressive exhibit features a formation of Blue Angels suspended from the ceiling of its vast atrium. I climbed to the second floor of the museum and made this image of four of the Blue Angel’s Vietnam War Era A-4 Skyhawk jet fighters seemingly plunging through the museum itself. I made this image so that the distinctive Delta Wing configuration of the Skyhawk fighters can echo the triangular geometry of the structure surrounding them.
08-DEC-2012
Lighthouse at Christmas, Pensacola, Florida, 2012
The Pensacola Lighthouse is the oldest light station and tallest lighthouse on the U.S. Gulf Coast. First used in 1859, it has flashed its powerful light, visible 27miles out to sea, for the last 154 years. In this image, the lighthouse is decorated for Christmas with seven strands of incongruously tiny lights. I moved as close as possible to the tower in order to stress the cords of miniature colored lights rising into the late afternoon sky. The lighthouse had not yet activated its beacon, leaving the colored bulbs to provide the only electrical illumination here.
08-DEC-2012
One hundred and seventy seven steps, Pensacola, Florida, 2012
Visitors are welcome to climb all 177 cast iron steps spiraling to the top of Pensacola’s historic lighthouse. I preferred to stay below to photograph the ornate 19th century vision of geometry working within geometry. The image takes us back into another time, a blend of both vintage engineering and expression.