New Orleans Graveyards and the Garden District
I took the Grey Line trolley to the Garden District, home of Commanders Palace and multimillion dollar homes flanked by poorer neighborhoods. Nice change of scenery from the down town area. I walked the good and bad parts making photographs along the way. In Part 1 I wrote a bit about the history of NOLA and how it dated back to the 1700’s during Napoleon’s reign.
My love affair with graveyards is based partly on a trip back in time when artisans hand crafted monuments to the dead. And partly on feeling in awe of the history that has passed. I often wonder about these silent monuments to the live’s of those who’ve passed and their connections to their community.
Each day the weather was perfect. Warm, blue skies and clouds. As a matter of fact, I got a pretty mean sunburn while photographing the graveyards. Above two different homes in the Garden District.
Beautiful wrought iron rail work, on a stoop in the poorer section of the Garden District.
Allot of the homes are from the 30’s and 40’s and are a simple wooden plank construction, with little or no insulation. The delineation between the rich and the poor is only a few blocks.
Shot from the hip, without looking through my viewfinder: Nightlife on Bourbon Street. You can get pretty much what ever you want on Bourbon Street. Drinks, food, sex and trinkets. 
Shot from the hip (L) : Dancing in the streets, almost anything goes in NOLA as long as you aren’t bothering anyone else. (R) Live bait to lure in the guys.
A couple of Marine buddies on leave in the French Quarter for the night.
Stumbled into a shop at 1am that sold tee-shirts and Mardi Gras beads.
The Graveyard Series
One of the reasons I’m so attracted to photographing graveyards is that art. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s all the statuary and mausoleums were made by hand, by skilled artisans. The texture overlays used in the photographs below are created from century old mausoleum walls that I photographed in their respective NOLA graveyards.
On the left is a gorgeous affluent family plot adorned with intricate iron work and in inlaid headstone dating back to 1872.
On the right, a modest Irish family headstone dating back to 1860, chronicling the lives of the Alleyn family hailing from the County Cork, Ireland.
The sight of this Conch shell left me wondering whether had drifted here from a coastal Hurrican Katrina tide, or was it left behind as a symbolic gesture from a family member?
Wrought iron balconies, a trade mark of New Orleans architecture, just off Bourbon street. 
Artists at Jackson Square.
Proud adoptive parents.
A willing subject that let me stalk him for a while in the Garden District.
An Australian Blue Dingo rescue dawg at Greg’s Antique’s in NOLA.
Originating from Jackson Square, horse or mule and carriage rides are taken by tourists throughout the French Quarter.
Jackson Square seen from across the street, up on the river bank landing.
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