street photography // styled wedding photos // new orleans, louisiana

Louisiana. Louiiiiiiisiana. Goddamn I love this place, and specifically its landmark city New Orleans. I’ve never met someone who’s visited this wild city who hasn’t also been haunted by its beauty and history. There is something alive here that I’ve never quite experienced elsewhere, and it’s easy to suddenly believe in spirits above all reason or previously formed opinion… because how else do explain the lingering airs of something not of this world, constantly preceding you and following you everywhere you turn?

My favorite part of New Orleans is how deep its history runs (for instance, we were there on the 300th anniversary of when it had been incorporated as a city–over sixty years before the US became a country), and that is made subtly apparent by the street names which are clearly French, but with the word “street/calle” interchangeable between English and Spanish. I understand that conflict and wars have been the creating force behind this great city, but I appreciate that its people have chosen to live among the cultural ghosts of its past in a stubborn embrace. Am I looking at this through rose-colored glasses? Maybe. But In New Orleans it is front and center, the notion that our struggles do not define us, but they do live within us.

I’ve often tried to relay to others that New Orleans is the only place in our country that really just feels like its another country, and really with a history that runs longer than our own, that’s not that far off. This was my second visit to New Orleans, and my first visit was just a few months after I had traveled to Mérida, México in 2013, a city just due south of New Orleans, as the seabird may fly… and what struck me is how similar these two cities were in architecture & in infrastructure, and in the kind but guarded way with which I felt welcomed into this place. In Mérida while enjoying my afternoon in the plaza, I had a friendly chat with a professor of history, who chastised me for saying that I was “American.” He said, “WE are American. YOU happen to be from the USA.” I felt so humbled and grateful for a lesson that I wasn’t expecting to learn that day, and while visiting New Orleans a few months later I felt very aware of my place. I understood my place as a visitor, as simply and as strongly as I understood my place as a fellow human being within the long history of humans being.

My girl Jillian asked me to assist her on this shoot in New Orleans, and I might be biased but I think everything we do together is pure magic so of course I took her up on it. The shoot itself was a very busy one–as you might expect with one of us coming from Seattle and the other one actually coming from México–so on the very last day that we were there I woke up as early as I could, and walked the streets that were slowly coming to life while simultaneously barely recovering from the night before. I’ll never be satisfied with the work that I’ve produced while in New Orleans because it’s always been too short… but I walked with intention and looked on with curiosity, and opened my ears and my heart to the stories I heard from its people. It was a beautiful and quiet morning that will live on inside of me, like the ghost of memory and earthly desire.

Thank you, as always, to Jillian, for always looking to include me in the wildest ways to work as photographers. I appreciate you, you freaking wild & talented woman.

shot for Jillian Mitchell
client Hotel Intercontinental
models Liz Lefrere,
Stephany Orsoto Galo
band Kinfolk
makeup Lynna Vo
hair Ali Vasquez
dresses Wedding Belles
floral Leaf + Petal
print Katie Fischer
rentals Lovegood Rentals
umbrellas Bella Umbrella
venue Race + Religion