I used a 24mm wideangle focal length to layer this twilight image, anchoring it to the antique street lamp in the foreground, and then echoing its upward thrust with the spires of St. Louis Cathedral in the background. However the key to this image lies in the single brilliantly illuminated cloud that seems to float out of the lamp and hang motionless over the cathedral within a patch of blue sky. Since the cathedral is a sacred building, the spiritual symbolism of that cloud dominates the image.

Flag-bedecked Royal Street becomes a dreamy stage as a heavy morning fog settles over the city. Autos stand mutely on the sidelines as foot-power, pedal-power, and softly focused hitching posts take center stage here.

Usually the wrought iron fence surrounding historic Jackson Square is covered with paintings for sale. But not on this day. As heavy fog rolled over the city, accompanied by a cold drizzle, the crowds vanished and sidewalk artists were nowhere to be seen – except for this persistent man. I built the image around the reds – the paint can in the foreground, the frame and umbrella in the middle ground, and a pedestrian in a red coat in the dimly seen background.

This photograph of a man making a photograph in the middle of the city’s famous Jackson Square is greatly enhanced by the heavy fog all around him. He seems lost in an enchanted tropical forest, enthralled no doubt by the abstraction wrought by nature itself. However, what made this image so exciting for me were the rhythms created by the interplay between the photographer and nature. The bending trunks of the palm trees seem to be mimicking the photographer’s bending legs as he struggles to compose his own picture in the fog. I add depth to the image by placing part of a bent tree trunk, swathed in peeling bark, across the entire upper right hand portion of my frame.

This juxtaposition of a row of trash containers and a faded Mint Julep advertisement offers an incongruous contrast between reality and fantasy. The four garbage cans are starkly realistic – the can first in line even opens its jaws to seemingly consume even more trash. The comparison between unpleasant garbage and a taste treat is strikingly incongruous. Meanwhile, the faded sign once promised a “delicious” and “refreshing” experience. Yet the sign’s now faded colors also tell us that this “new drink” is not new any more, and that perhaps its time may well have come and gone.

Drainage in New Orleans has been a major concern since the founding of the city. It is completely surrounded by water – Lake Pontchartrain lies to the north, Lake Borgne and wetlands to the east and west, and the Mississippi River to the south. Much of this place lies at or below sea level, and rainfall must either evaporate or be pumped out. When strong winds blow and hard rains fall, the city always faces the threat of floods, most notably during its most catastrophic drainage event – Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The city still bears traces of the damage. This image does not show water damage itself, but it does imply an awareness of the constant threat posed by drainage issues. The rubber boots, incongruously tossed into the bed of a local bar’s pick up truck, offers a symbol of such readiness. The French Quarter itself is reflected in the window, while the name of the bar’s famous host restaurant – Antoine’s – is emblematic of the city itself.

This is one of several pieces of contemporary sculptures commemorating the musicians who made this place “the birthplace of jazz.” It stands near the city’s French Market, and features two-dimensional statues of musicians encircling a fountain. I limit my image to three of them, dominated by a trombone player painted in blue and yellow primary colors. Two other celebrants add context.

The front doors of restaurants get a lot of use, and acquire many fingerprints over the course of a day. They are cleaned over and over again, and in this image I abstract the person responsible to maintain the appearance of this particular door. By placing his face behind the door frame, and featuring only the two hands at work – one holding a bottle of window cleaner and the other a paper towel – I make this image into a universal symbol of man at work. I include the restaurant’s logo as useful context.

A winter sun breaks through the clouds hanging over the city's most historic block – the 18th century St. Louis Cathedral, along with its historic Presbytere, which once housed priests, later became city hall, and is now a museum. I exposed for the sun, allowing it to become a perfect sphere while at the same time abstracting the structures around it.

Heavy fog had settled over Jackson Square as I made this image. While the fog gave the image an timeless atmospheric quality, the bright blue and red umbrella at the right edge of the frame originally pulled the eye away from the center of interest, which is the pair of pedestrians at center. I converted the image to black and white to draw the eye back to the center of the image, relegating the umbrella to the background. The figure in the long coat or dress seems as if it has come from another time, adding a haunted quality to the scene. To those who know New Orleans history, the ghostly scene will also be reinforced by the presence of the fog-shrouded Pontalba Apartments in the background. Built in 1850, these apartments flank both sides of Jackson Square, and are said to be the oldest continuously occupied rented rooms in the United States. (Some of them are considered haunted – Clarence John Laughlin, whose book “Ghosts along the Mississippi” set the standard for haunting imagery, lived here in a Pontalba apartment for many years.)

The morning fog was so heavy that at first I could not see either the famous equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson or the St. Louis Cathedral that combine to give this square its identity. I could barely see anything ten twenty feet in front of me. The Square is bounded on one side by the Mississippi River, and given the river’s shifting winds, I guessed that the fog might eventually thin to reveal traces of either the statue or the church, or perhaps even both at the same time. And that is what is happening at this moment. Just as three people (all of them dressed in the primary colors of red and blue) walked past the square’s familiar bending palms towards the statue, the fog thinned a bit to reveal the statue and barely imply the church rising behind it in the mist. I spent about a half hour at the scene, and during that time worked along side of a local professional photographer who told me that this kind of heavy fog occurs here only sporadically. The last such fog was 12 months earlier. I made over 100 images as the fog changed its intensity, and this was the photograph that best fulfilled my intentions. It offers an appropriate ending to this photographic essay on my long weekend in the Big Easy.