Louisiana Lens Book from HNOC
just in time for Christmas
This is a quick post to alert you to a gorgeous new photo book by Historic New Orleans Collection curator, John Lawrence. It’s not a comprehensive catalog of Louisiana photographers but more his personal selection from the vast HNOC archives that features a selection of wonderful photographs and incisive commentary from the curator. New Orleans “art people” will recognize the sculptural mirror-reflected head on the cover as that of George Dureau, prolific and proficient in both painting and studio photography.
The introduction and commentary by Lawrence (above) displays his jargon-free, scholarly, and historical approach to curating: "The person who tries to indulge in more than a sampling is confronted with the Sisyphean task of trying to consume it all…a collection can’t be captured either physically or intellectually by throwing some large imaginary (and inadequate) net over it.” You gotta love the shot of Clarence Laughlin’s 4x5 camera case. Looks like an old Kodak MasterView?
I shot these quick copyshots in open shade on my deck so they won’t really capture the beauty of the reproductions (on heavy paper) but this daguerreotype (above) is haunting and mysterious. A church organ that looks like a church. The book is full of these arresting images.
The book features many well-known photographers who were not residents of Louisiana, like Arnold Genthe (above), a German native who was trained as a philologist and created photographs informed by writers and literature. We learn that Genthe was quite the pictorial stylist, shooting at dusk and conjuring images in the 1920’s that harkened back to the previous century.
I have a special fondness for Clarence John Laughlin as I was able to hear him expound on a photograph at a salon upon first moving to New Orleans in 1982. Okay, he was a bit of a delightful windbag but it doesn’t detract from the spooky surrealism of his images (he wasn’t the greatest printer either, but nevermind). Laughlin held lengthy correspondences by letter with the more-famous surrealists and was respected as a serious artist internationally. I love his images from Belle Grove (above, right), in my hometown of White Castle, LA, because I had to hear about how “some damn teenagers burned it down” growing up. Belle Grove was considered the most majestic of all the antebellum houses. Too bad about the fire.
Big-time heavy-hitters make their showing here too, like Robert Polidori (above), and I never disparage “disaster porn” since most of Greek tragedy, Shakespeare, and Netflix involves tragedy in one form or another. Polidori’s giant prints of Katrina wreckage are spectacular. Images by Stephen Wilkes, Leonard Freed, and others are also included.
Walker Evans’s famous Bourbon Street Shop image is pre-dates his work for the W.P.A. (a poor fit, he didn’t last long there) and shows his eye for powerful graphic images produced with the 8x10 camera from a time when Bourbon Street was still a residential area (we would bring it back…if we could).
Local photo-legend and incessant street documentarian Michael P. Smith’s entire archive resides at HNOC (with merch!) and he gets a much-deserved spread. His Spirit World book is the definitive record of New Orleans spiritual churches and a must-have for local collectors. I wrote a cover story on it for Wavelength Magazine back when I was a wee young’un. All the Wavelengths are online at U.N.O.
Many local photographers are included in the HNOC’s holdings, including Christopher Porche’ West (above) who has a beautiful image of the Treme’ Barber Shop from 1982. His color Mardi Gras Indian photographs are also superb and his “Bank of Soul” website is chock full of New Orleans lore and images.
Richard Sexton may be best known for his New Orleans Elegance and Decadence book but his Fishing in the Flooded Bonne Carre’ Spillway image (above) is a beautiful commentary on the relationship of local man and his environment.
I must give a special thanks to John Lawrence who, back in my lean and hungry days, looked over a portfolio of 11x14 black and white prints and purchased a handful for HNOC. I had discovered the work of Robert Frank, Gary Winogrand, and various other photo-heroes in college and let their simple, curious style inform my wanderings with a camera. This picture above is from a mop and broom factory in Thibodaux, LA, a small Cajun college town where I lived before moving to the big city. Thibodaux was ripe with scenes of my people and their ways, and I liked nothing better than pulling up in my red ‘67 Beetle and asking permission to photograph. I’m older and slower now but you never know, there might be a Beetle and some Tri-X in my future. Again. (This reminds me I need to update my website.)
The Louisiana Lens book would make a great Christmas present for anyone who loves photography and our local culture down here. You can order one from the HNOC website. I bought one for my daughter but don’t tell her before Christmas Eve, right? Or should I say “Santa” bought one? Maybe we’ll have another ‘tee-shirt’ Christmas down here this year…