All cities are unique, instantly recognizable by anyone who has lived in or visited them.
And yet, New Orleans stands out—most notably because it is an island of diversity surrounded by a regional ethos that often disdains outliers, rejects joie de vivre, and limits personal freedoms.
It is a vibrant city, filled with music and food and dancing in the streets. Little is off-limits; alcohol flows with abandon while the blues pours out from the doorways of hundreds of dim and dingy downtown destinations.
There is an intrinsic, profoundly embedded age to New Orleans—an age difficult to find anywhere else in North America. It's where the Choctaw gathered for thousands of years to trade along the shores of the mighty Mississippi, where people’s souls were enslaved and traded, where immigrants found safety (except for some whose lives ended by swinging from a tree), and where current businesses still flourish in buildings constructed 300 years ago where jazz was born.
Over the past 25 years, my wife Rachel and I have visited this extraordinary city, sometimes with camera in hand and sometimes without.
The photographs shown here are just some of the images that are part of a new exhibit of my work at Perspective Fine Art Photography Gallery in Evanston. The exhibit is based on our very personal experience of New Orleans, capturing the play of light and shadow on the buildings and the reflections in the ever-present water that permeates the entirety of the city. The images also encompass the human character that epitomizes the essence of New Orleans.
About the Author: Tobin Fraley is a photographer, writer and a leading expert on carousels. He owns Woodland Grove Photography Studio in Mundelein. He also teaches photography at the Chicago Botanical Gardens. ("We are so grateful that Tobin Fraley has been a regular contributor to SW Lake," says Michael Beightol, publisher.) Perspective Fine Art Photography Gallery is hosting Fraley's exhibit through June 29. Learn more at PerspectiveGallery.org.