NEW ORLEANS JAZZ FEST WRAPUP 2017

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Trombone Shorty, King of Jazz Fest this year,
re-inventing New Orleans music with his combining jazz, R and B, soul and funk.
Not only a musician extraordinaire and a great bandleader, 
but a communitarian and ambassador for the city.

And the 2017 DLJF awards go to: BEST CONCERT: Stevie Wonder. Such the ambassador of love, such the performer, so good at getting people smiling, praying, thinking, singing and on their feet. SECOND BEST: E W and Fire. So many favorites! Such performers! Everybody up for this whole concert too. FUNKIEST CONCERT: What is hip, and don't we know it's Tower of Power. BEST SURPRISE: NOLA Diva Wanda Rouzan (with our own Charles Moore on bass and groupie me back stage!!) who tore up the Blues Tent. HAPPIEST ENERGY: Gospel Tent on Sunday morning with the Zion Harmonizers and once again our own Charlie on bass. Stomp your feet, clap your hands happy joy. The tent was rocking almost!  BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: Lake Street Dive. Love this band, but I think they show much better in a smaller venue. HAPPINESS FACTOR: Weather. Temps in the 70s Thurs, Fri, and Sat. Sunday only 82. And unheard of low humidity! We were actually cold a couple of times. PERSONAL JOY: I survived with only one camera and going to only one of the weekends instead of two

Rockin the Gospel Tent with the Zion Harmonizers

Partying with Stevie

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For some perspective: In the 1970s when the JF first started, tickets were $3. You could drive your car onto the fairgrounds, and performers were mostly local musicians. These days, tickets are $80, Jazz Fest brings in $300 million to the city every year. The fest is rivaled as a tourist attraction in NOLA only by Mardi Gras, and it attracts not only local musicians but the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Snoop Dogg, Tom Petty, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, U2, Jimmy Buffett, Rod Stewart. 

Named festival of the year four times, JF offers every kind of music possible. And yet it is more than a music fest; it also features Louisiana culture and history, bringing live demonstrations of cooking and folk craft. It is an arts fest as craft and art vendors bring clothing, jewelry, instruments and art. It is a style fest as photos seen below can attest. It is a festival of food -- wow, crawfish bread and shrimp bread and alligator po-boys, jambalaya and seafood gumbo and pecan catfish meuniere, seafood merliton, mango ice, fried chicken, fried green tomatoes, artichoke casserole, the list goes on and on and on and includes more and more vegan and vegetarian options like spring rolls with tofu, plantains and jama jama (spinach). Seventy vendors in all. 

Crawfish monica

As for my own personal history, my first Jazz Fest was in 1973. I remember seeing Bonnie Raitt, skinny as a rail, playing slide guitar. Over the years, after I left New Orleans and began growing my own family, I was able to get to the Jazz Fest only sporadically. During recent years, beginning in 2004, meanwhile, I started making it a mission to come every year. Those first years, I left elaborate handouts for sitters and my husband to make sure my children, 7, 12 and 16 were cared for in my absence. I'd come back heavy laden with spoon rests, Charles Moore CDs and playing cards for all the people who helped. So far since then, I haven’t missed a festival. kow. My children are old enough these days to make their own PB & Js. As of this year, I can say I’ve come 14 years in a  row, most of the time both weekends.

We come for the music. We come for the culture. This festival, like I imagine no other, oozes culture and place. Musicians love coming to this city to perform, because this is New Orleans, where jazz was born, and the audience expects a good party, with good music. There is also an international feeling throughout the fest, just like the city itself. Music comes from all over the world, as do vendors and visitors. There is always a nation represented, celebrated and highlighted. This year it was Cuba.

Blues Tent with Wanda Rouzan

Even the weather is signature NOLA. But hold the  umbrella, the fest has its own elaborate pumping system for getting water off the grounds when it rains, and believe you me, it rains in New Orleans. This year, on the Wed. before the first day of the second weekend, we got five inches. It was still raining Thursday at 10:30 a.m. just before the gates were to open at 11. Sister Sue and I expected major mud and went to two different places looking for rain boots. But the fest has got this down: By the time we got to the fairgrounds, water that we later heard was knee-deep in places had been pumped into a nearby pond. Straw and sand had been laid. Et voila, there was not nearly the mud we've seen in later years, not nearly the smell of manure like that one year when they made the mistake of spreading hay from the horse barns (note aforementioned). Temperatures and humidity soaring past 90 in both cases cooked the hay, which they didn't think to consider, had horse waste in it. The smell was enough to send some people home rather than stumble around in mud and manure six inches deep and more. 

More Gospel Tent again: One of my favorite places to be. No greater,

 collective happier energy anywhere on the planet that I can see.

 This year, as aforementioned, I made a few major changes in my festival-going behavior: 1. I did only the 2nd weekend whereas in the past I've done both. 2. I brought only one duffel bag of Jazz Fest outfits instead of the usual two. 3. I bought only one camera instead of the usual two camera and lenses, including my heavy long one. 4. I booked one-way tickets to NOLA and one-way tickets back. 5. My sis and I also paid for primo parking, which means close to the gate,  instead of a mile away. The $40 per day, split in half, wasn't all that bad.

There were disadvantages to this. I barely got my Jazz Fest legs and it was time to go back home. I didn't get to see Leon Bridges and other people I'd like to have seen the first weekend. The most major downside was only having one camera and not my long lens; I didn't get the concert closeups I like to get.

However and still, I found myself happier without so many cameras to carry and with parking so close. It was easier to decide when to come and when to leave with one-way tickets. (Airlines are doing crazy things these days; wasn’t much more expensive or hard to pull off. I booked tickets the night before in both cases for around $210, not counting luggage, each way.)  Instead of a backpack full of stuff, I carried a little purse, one camera and a chair. 

Everything was so much better. I still took a lot of photos. But I relaxed more. I didn't feel the need to run between stages so much. I also, finally, learned to put on the sunscreen before going in so I don't have to carry it in with me, to hydrate before I even walk in the place, to keep a large rose mint tea going the whole time and to bring toilet paper in my little purse for when the port-a-potties run out, which they inevitably do. (Special side note: I took note of the best way to smuggle in alcohol: breast milk pouches hidden in the unmentionables. See below.)

Meanwhile for now, I'm always, always, always glad I came, and this year, I am especially glad I came the way I did, a little lighter, a little more flush with fluid and a lot less expectant of myself. My legs and feet aren't killing like they usually as I trudge my way through the airport and to home.  Less cumbersome, less work, makes more energy for more fun. Party on, greatest city in the U.S.

Cops and staff were extra happy this year.
Weather was nice.Music was good, including Earth, Wind and Fire,
where this woman (above) got to dance on a bridge
even though the men in green usually keep people off, 
and where this couple (below) got to fall in love again.

Love how street parties continue after Jazz Fest each day.
This is To Be Continued Brass Band, a group
of kids from a local high school who wanted
to not be a statistic and began to do music together

Vendor

At Widespread Panic at Acura Stage

Cajun stage, Fais-Do-Do, on that rainy Thursday. You can see a little wet, 
but not anything like last year when the field was ankle-deep in mud and manure.

Stylin

Post-Stevie after-glow

My traveling companion

Me

Non-festival photos, New Orleans Jazz Festival, 2011

New Orleans Jazz Festival Photography Application 2012

Every year I go to the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Every year, I shoot thousands of photos. This year, I chose to apply for one of 150 coveted volunteer photographer slots. This is not photographer exploitation, like I know all about with give-away writing these days. The JF actually treats its artists right: If I am chosen, I get a $50 ticket and all-access stage passes every day I shoot. I only have to provide three images each day. And I get rights to all my images. Everybody wins. Of course, I don't know if I will get a slot. I'm just happy that I applied and that I had enough pictures I thought worthy to submit: I have crashed so many hard drives and have lost so many original photos. I'm so glad I had these six to send, a hodgepodge, including not just musicians, but atmospherics of a culture, like they wanted. Fingers crossed.  

1. ESPERANZA SPALDING    Jazz bassist Esperanza Spalding was 24 and two years away from receiving a Best New Artist Grammy (2011) when she came on the scene of the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Here, she appears transcended as she likewise mesmerizes a Jazz Tent crowd with a rare coupling of seasoned talent and youthful elegance.

MARDI GRAS INDIAN, POST-KATRINA
Many of the Mardi Gras Indian tribes remained displaced from their homes as they yet returned to the New Orleans Jazz Festival to parade around the fairgrounds for the first Fest post-Katrina. I asked this particular man to look into my camera for a moment as he processed. The sadness in his eyes is profound.

LET THE JAZZ FEST BEGIN
One of my favorite moments of the Jazz Festival is the afternoon before it actually begins, with the Rebirth Brass Band in the French Quarter and attendant Indians, dancers and musicians. This picture suggests the expectation and excitement of another Jazz Festival about to begin.

GIRL WITH THE YELLOW FEATHER EARRING
As much as I love shooting musicians, I love photographing people at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. This brightly bedecked festival-goer turns to scan the crowd as she waits for John Legend to come on. I liked the light, the shadows and once again, the expectation.

BIG SAM'S FUNKY NATION COMES TO KENT           I love it when my favorite hometown New Orleans funk music comes to a stage near me. This is Big Sam's Funky Nation, playing for a small crowd at the Kent Stage, December, 2011.

JOHN LEGEND, 2011 NEW ORLEANS JAZZ FESTIVAL          John Legend gets into it, like he always does, at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. I had to work my way to the front of a packed crowd to respectfully nudge my lens between two people to grab this shot.

I do believe this blog will address either directly or indirectly...

---Photography. I have been taking pictures for a very long time, and in the last couple of years have begun taking wedding pics and portraits and soccer pix and landscape pix for people who give me money when I give them my pictures. I. Am. Having. The. Time. Of. My. Life with this newly developing creative expression. Every blog post will include at least one of my pictures, usually more, i.e., as many as I can tastefully cram onto the page.

---Writing. My kids once asked me if I had to choose between writing and photography, which would I choose. I refuse/d to answer. I have been writing as a way of expressing myself since I was 7. I have been a newspaper reporter, a columnist, a blogger and a wanna-be memoirist. I believe every time I put my fingers on the keyboard that an opportunity is before me. I not only love the craft, but the study of it.


---Food. My Lebanese great grandmother had two ovens and two fridges in her kitchen. I ate a lotta grape leaves and raw kibbeh in that kitchen. Add to this: New Orleans. Somewhere along the way, we left SC, where I was born, and we moved to New Orleans. What this means: I love to eat okra in my gumbo and plain yogurt on my fried chicken. And I love to cook it. And take pictures of it.

----Daily miracles. I'm not talking about fishes and loaves. I'm talking about saying yes to a bike ride because your husband asked you, even though your middle-aged knees hurt from yesterday's Latin dance class. And on this bike ride that you didn't really want to take, you encounter on either side of the breeze-blown springtime path, incredible, other-worldly wildflowers you didn't know existed on the planet. I'm talking about everyday daily miracles.

----The human connection. Besides dancing, I believe this, right here, is why we're here. This is what we're put here on Earth for, to say "Good morning" with special vigor to the grocery store clerk who looks like she's having a bad day; to give a piece of jewelry to a stranger because she's just told you she likes it; to stay on the cell phone, long distance, with a Blood Sister while she's having a uterine biopsy. Speaking of women:

----The Sisterhood. By this, I mean women and body image, women and the desire to break out of routine and long-standing rote, women and the power they hold if only they knew how much power. Specifically, I will very often address the aforementioned Blood Sisterhood (BS -- my three sisters, who were all borne of my wild-child Mama, who is an entry all on her own and who taught us about Soul Power way before we ever got to the City of New Orleans. Yeah, you rite:

----New Orleans. Music, food, culture, fire, flood, power and lack of power, people, love, birth and The Rebirth Jazz Band. "Ain't no party like a rebirth party, 'cause a rebirth party don't stop. Unh." This is the city where the aforementioned Mama moved us, when I was 17, from the South Carolina hills (where Mr. James Brown was born). This is the city and state I left when I was 26 after graduating from LSU. This is the city I return to at least once, sometimes four times, a year, because this is where I am most me.

----Motherhood, and the healing power of circular love.

----Therapy and living in the present while integrating a complicated past.

----Theology, philosophy and the never-ending search for Truth, post 60s-Catholic upbringing.

----Death and dying.


I'd like to say I will post daily. That's what the blogger gurus say you SHOULD do. You SHOULD post every day so that people get used to looking you up every day. Should? Should? I hate shoulds. But hm.

Synchronicity and artistic pursuit

My No. 1 adviser suggested three lenses for my upgraded photo arsenal. They are lenses I hesitate to name for fear of losing anybody who doesn't talk photo, which I barely do, let me assure. But for people who want to know, J2 suggested the 24-70 mm 2.8 for best-of-show/all-around lens; the 85 mm 1.4 for my No. 1 portrait lens; and the 70-200 mm 2.8 for Jazz Fest, sports pictures and all those shots I can't get when it gets too dark.

54" />

Now we're talking about a lot of money. And we're also talking about carefully choosing from among dozens of options, which I had been researching for weeks, months, years, my whole life. And then today became the day when I HAD to buy SOMETHING, because the main lens I'd been using (an 18-200 mm 3.5) was malfunctioning and I had a job to shoot.

I woke with a plan, to buy that main all-around lens, the 24-70 2.8. But I was still concerned whether this was the right lens or not.

So I walked into Campus Camera, and I asked the one guy in there who is actually nice AND smart (the others are that cocky breed of ego-y yuk that shows up in every artistic venue):

"If you had to pick a No. 1 lens, what would it be?"

Without a single prod of provocation from me, he said "The 24-70 2.8."

Game, set, match.

Herein are the results of my first day shooting with my new sharp and lovely color 24-70 2.8.

Ambient light

"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” --Howard Thurman, American theologian, clergyman and activist, 1900-1981.

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I have been semi-launching a photography business for several years now. Today is the day when I push forward on the throttle, as I begin plunking down an unholy amount of money on top-of-the-line equipment I have been reviewing for months. This is just as I am getting lots of requests for my pictures.

All good, right?

Ah, but the id or the super ego or the devil, whichever you want to call that naysayer entity that co-exists with your guardian angel, will try to have its way when you are headed toward the light, which is to say away from the dark, which is sometimes more familiar. And here is what the dark was saying to me yesterday as I made final plans for today's spending event:


1. You have never spent this much money at one time. You once bought a new car and a house. But it was WITH your husband. And he signed the papers. How can you possibly make this important decision all by yourself?

2. As soon as you lay out all that cash at Campus Camera, you'd better be prepared to announce in a loud, albeit falsetto, voice: "This is what I want to do. This is how I want to spend my time." And you damned well better be good at it.

3. Will you make back your investment? Or is this really an expensive hobby, a self-induuuuuuulgence, disguised as a business? Wouldn't the Family, and the World, be better served if you instead took all that money and dry-walled the basement, or sent your daughter to a small private college where your daughter really wants to go instead of the cheaper (free because her daddy teaches there), larger public institution here in town? Hm, Mom?

4. Take a look at the Internet and the hundreds upon trillions of wedding and portrait photographers who will always have a bigger lens, a better camera and more tutorials than you. Can you possibly compete?

So yeah. So yesterday, I FB-posted some of these anxieties to Joe Jackson of Rock Hill, SC, an amazing photographer, www.joejackson.zenfolio.com (sorry this blog won't let me hyperlink yet again!) and one of my emerging fav peeps in the world, whose very approach to work and life embraces all that I believe in. His photos are warm. He is warm. His photos are genuine. He is genuine. His photos are generous. He is generous.

I used to work with Joe at The State newspaper in SC where I learned a lot of what I know about photography. I was hired as a words person, a writer, a reporter. But for every story I wrote, I was assigned a photographer. And I watched them with great interest and fascination, perfecting my own understanding of photography, which dates back to when I was 19 and a traveling studio photographer, shooting, believe it or not, Shriners, for Shriner yearbooks.

I learned a lot about form and composition and umbrella lights, shooting large Shriner families in a studio setting. I learned how to handle a 35 from one of the other Shriner photographers, a freelancer who taught me the rudimentaries with a manual Leica and a hand-held meter. I also learned from my photo j classes in journalism school. But, truly, it was these guys at The State newspaper -- Ginger Pinson, Linda Stelter, Anne McQuary, Jeff Amberg and Joe who taught me about getting the picture to match the story, about capturing the moment, about not invading private space while completely invading it, about staying out of the picture, existentially. The picture is not about my ego, but about the subject.

I folded this knowledge into my own creative expression and a few Nikons here and there. And then one day I had an exhibit at Starbucks. And then one day I started landing wedding and portrait jobs. And then one day I began needing new equipment -- and mentors, which everybody, even Mother Teresa, needs. You can be a teacher, even, and still need somebody to teach you. How do you otherwise get better? Ah, but you've got to find the right mentor, somebody who speaks your language, and if s/he doesn't, well you have to keep moving with patience despite your impatience. It's like choosing a therapist, or a husband.

I tried a few before I found Joe. I found a guy in Cleveland online, who promised great tutorials. I drove all the way to the west side of Cleveland in a snow storm. He did know a lot about light. But his photos were way too artificial looking for my tastes. I found a camera store clerk in Aurora who takes wedding photos. I learned some from her, about light, again, always about light, until it became clear that wedding photography for her was a formula. She was burned out. I tried a few others, who were preachy or ego-y or downright mean. They'd been working stiffs for decades. What did I think, that I could pick up a digital camera and start shooting?

And then I saw Joe's stuff online. And here's the thing: People keep telling me what they like about my portraits is how warm they are, how much personality I capture in the photos. I think it's because I like people. Simple as that maybe, and I say this with all humility. This is what I saw when I revisited Joe's pictures online for the first time in 15 years. I could feel Joe's warmth behind the lens. And so I ventured forth. I FBed him a question about one of his pictures and the lens he used. And he answered in 7 paragraphs. And then I asked him another question. And he answered in 10 paragraphs. And I kept asking, even as I apologized for taking up too much of his time, and he kept answering, by telling me he was pleased to help me. He even went so far as to have a phone conversation one day with me on his entire lunch break.

And so yesterday, when I found the Dark Knight sitting on my shoulder, I went to Joe with my anxieties, to which he replied:

"One of the best things about FB (and the internet in general) is that it allows you to see others' work. One of the worst things about FB (and the internet in general) is that it allows you to see others' work.
I am one of the world's worst offenders when it comes to the sin of obsessing over the perceived chasm of "quality" between my pictures and what I see on other photographers' sites. Here's my advice:
1) Step away from the internet. Resist the urge to compare. Feel free to look and ask if the purpose is to increase your own knowledge, but step away once you begin feeling either seriously inferior or superior. Both extremes are fatal to your mental and professional health.
2) (This one is listed at the risk of sounding evangelical, but you asked.) Are you using your God-given technical, personal, and business skills in a way that ultimately reveals the beauty of creation and celebrates our connections to each other? Or put another way - does your art lift people and their spirits, or does it diminish? As long as you're doing your share of the lifting, I'm good with it.
3) Clients come to us asking for pictures, but what we actually have to sell is "the experience." If your client walks away from the session feeling like both of you had a genuinely good time, THAT is what they will remember and share. I know you. So I know for a fact that one reason people come to you is because you make good pictures. But I also know that people come to you because they already know, or have heard, that they will have a good time with some one who will be warm, funny, and engaging.
4) And finally, if one goal is to make money at this - is there a market for what I do? Apparently there is. Regardless of your self-perception, or maybe in spite of it, people like what you do. And they will give you money to do it. Accept it and be happy. If you seriously entertain thoughts of inferiority, those feelings will encroach upon your interactions with your clients. When your personal demons shout "You people are nuts for spending money on me when you should be hiring this other photographer instead," your clients will hear the message loud and clear. Do not give the demons a voice.
Want to expand your technical skills or explore other styles? Fine. Knock yourself out. But do it for your own personal or professional growth, NOT in order to sate a false feeling of inferiority.
So...my assessment is this: you're well-covered on points #2-4. Keep working on #1 to banish the demons, and you'll be great. Or just ask me and I'll remind you."

The dark side is always there, hovering. But the light is where we belong. Thanks for being my light, Joe. And I didn't even need a flash. Campus Camera, here I come.

1st-place photos at the Randloph Portage County Fair

I won my first photo contest, at the Portage County Randloph Fair! Two blue ribbons for Mardi Gras Indian (portrait category) and MudBowl (sports). Fun! And thanks for the $5 prize money!!! A Starbucks latte, and then some!