Last December I was in New Orleans for a couple of hours before my cousin's wedding later that day. I didn't have much time to photograph, the weather wasn't great, and my wife and I were giving my family a short tour of New Orleans. Even still, I managed to squeeze in about 15-20 minutes of picture taking around Jackson Square and the Saint Louis Cathedral. It was horrible light really, but every now and then the sun would pop through and light everything up for just a moment.
I've just now gotten around to editing those images, and I came away with several that I'm quite pleased with given the limited time I had. This first one is not a panoramic as far as its dimensions go, but it was actually 7 to 8 different shots that I shot in panorama-like fashion and blended together. This was the best light I had all day, so I shot fast:
Shortly thereafter you can see that the light is already going away with a little dodging and burning I was able to pull a nice frame out of it:
Here I was trying to get a different angle:
I had a number of shots that looked very similar and also very boring and bland. I adjusted these to get them to where I wanted them, something unique and with some variety across the shots:
There are a lot of crazy people, with very boring shots, who run around screaming "don't fix it in Photoshop". Why not? I'm not a news reporter. I'm an artist. I create images, both at the point of capture and in the computer. Truth, in this circumstance, is boring and irrelevant. Especially in travel photography, which has nothing whatsoever to do with truth.
The RAW files for these next two images were cloudy, dull, and otherwise rejects. I used the clouds to my advantage to add drama. Sorry, that's
DRAMA. This doesn't always work. I'm using to my advantage the history of New Orleans itself and its associations with ghosts, Voodoo, scary drunk people, etc.
My hope is that these shots will someday be used in a story or book where some dark, menacing New Orleans artwork is needed.
