NOTES
A Night’s Walk through a New Orleans Cemetery
“Nothing breathes here except me although I’m not alone.”
It’s comfortable here, looking at stone faces, obscured by moonlight and long shadows. There are dead people inside the ovens, some with streets named after them and others who were entombed with the delusions they volunteered to die for.
A soundtrack plays along my steps between the shadows of Cypress trees. It’s so typical, so romantic, so me. “This Twilight Garden” by The Cure and I’m a kid again thinking to old fears and the mysteries.
It doesn’t smell of death here like it does at St. Louis Number 2 Cemetery. It smells of the crisp, green air of autumn in New Orleans. Herbaceous.
The moon hangs in half in the midnight blue sky, the color of the Gulf of Mexico. Nothing breathes here except me although I’m not alone. The river breeze reaches us here, whispers old voices, caresses my forehead with its cool brush.
I raise my camera.
Breathe it in.
Click.
Every invisible eye watches from the crypts. Did something crawl up my leg?
This woman once approached me at St. Louis Cemetery Number 2. Compulsion rose from her lungs as she reached a hand to her chest, “I have to tell you that there’s a spirit that always follows you. They won’t do harm but they are very curious about you.”
Life is wasted on the living.
Many choose to avoid this place, this cemetery because they only see death. There is so much life though and stories. There are funny things that happen here. Anne Rice is entombed just down the lane from her arch rival, Al Copeland. Twisted humor is a New Orleans tradition. But there is this sixteen year old girl. A poem she wrote is taped to the face of her tomb.
I get the best advice from elders. They says that our life is a fearful one, chasing green faces of dead men, dying again in one pocket and resurrecting from another.
They elders say
We should chase dreams.
Do wild things.
Get weird.
Take risks.
So here I am, at the cemetery at night in New Orleans alone, but not alone, tempting spirits and violence with a camera. The oaks aren’t old enough to be famous but the trunks are wide enough for secrets and shades to hide.
Why do they follow me?
What was in the picture I saw when I was nine years old.
Smoke?
Vapor?
I can’t get them out of my head.
It has arrived
The inspiration, explanation and guide to finding secret messages in my new horror photography book, Hairnomicon: Communiques from Beyond the Chair.
Hairnomicon: Communiques from Beyond the Chair has Arrived
This is my first photography book that tells a fictional story. In this one, several amateur spiritualists attempt to contact the spirits of long dead hairdressers from beyond the grave. Its during this session in which someone makes an error, unintentionally inviting into the abandoned chapel the spirit of Zozo (a supposed real life demon that consistently shows up during spirit board sessions).
The book was inspired by classic occult cinema, the Blair Witch Project and countless hoaxed images of ghosts made during the spiritualist era of the late 1800s and early 1900s. This was the culmination of years of research, which ultimately became this book; a very fun project that I collaborated with several hair stylists of the Left Brain Group.
We photographed this throughout New Orleans, Santa Clarita, California and New York City. It took us to an allegedly haunted location, my own home and a friend's home studio in Astoria. Sometimes the spaces were confined, which required a lot of creative techniques to keep the light from bouncing all over the place. And then, when all that was done, the images were laid into Photoshop to create the final versions I had sketched in my notebooks.
It was amazing to see my vision, the one I had scrawled on hard pages, come together so easily, as if guided by something else. I had never done a book like this due to a lack of courage. I had previously made photos that were inspired by ghost photography...it was how I began my career but years of trying to eke out a living, making photographs pushed me into another direction -- an often lucrative one but it wasn't passion. I was just trying to stay out of the poor house.
New Orleans was my gateway to the inner place within my imagination. This had always been the city for me. My work was much more well received here than it had been in New York City. I found dozens of kindred spirits, those whose dark curiosities mirrored my own. I began to experiment with the breaking of the two dimensional world. How could I make work that was felt dangerous?
Like the Necronomicon in HP Lovecraft's works, I wanted my photography book feel as if one could experience a work that reached out to them. Perhaps literally. What would Hairnomicon look like? How would it feel? I reached into decades of memories, searching for inspiration from books I had read since I was a child. I remembered automatic writings and hidden messages purportedly imprinted by ghosts onto photographs or the dangers of contacting the dead without the guidance of a medium or spirit expert. I wanted my audience to spend more time on this book and look for the hidden messages that relate to the story or hidden figures lurking behind my characters. It is all here.
When you purchase a copy of Hairnomicon: Communiques from Beyond the Chair, I want you to spend time looking carefully through each photograph. Do you see anything else? Does something speak back to you? Maybe you'll find something that I hadn't intended to include or maybe you'll find something that wasn't supposed to be seen. Whatever it is, Hairnomicon is the most interactive collection of photographs I've ever produced. I hope you have fun with it.
To purchase a copy of HAIRNOMICON: COMMUNIQUES FROM BEYOND THE CHAIR, click this link.
St. Augustine, Florida -- Five Hundred Years
Five hundred years of shadows in St. Augustine, Florida.
Five hundred years of shadows, leaving imprints on the cobble stone and the white plastered walls. Ancient graffiti scrawled on the walls of the old fort are communiques from soldiers now long gone. St. Augustine, Florida -- the oldest city in America.
Inspiration Board: Hairnomicon: Communiques from Beyond the Chair
Antique fake ghost photography to be the inspiration for a new book.
I wanted to share with you the inspiration board for a project I'm working on with the Left Brain Group for the upcoming event in March called Bayou St. Blonde, which will happen here in New Orleans. The goal of this project is to create a brief, fun photo book displaying the talents and craft of the artists represented by the Left Brain Group.
The story behind this project is a seance conducted by amateur spiritualists who want to communicate with their favorite hair stylists who have departed from this existence. As someone who is enamored with hoaxed ghost photography from the late 1800s and early 1900s, it made sense to emulate some of the old techniques used by these talented fakers of the time. Although there is hardly any mention of the photographers who did these shoots, I thought it was time to honor the creative methods they used to create these faked images of spirit activity.
The City of the Dead, the Giver of Peace
Does the cemetery bring you peace too?
St. Roch Cemetery, New Orleans
A walked past the memories of thousands of lives, tokens left behind by loved ones who continue life without these deceased friends and family members. The gravity of sorrow always strikes me during these wanderings but I can't get away from them. It's like an obsession. When I'm among these concrete crypts, flowers and trinkets, I feel at peace. Clouds graze the sun, moving slowly across the blue sky raising shadows from the ground.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Spectacular Gravetimes with Friends
Meeting twilight in the City of the Dead with friends.
Zombie and I met with our friend, Valeria at Carmel and Sons Botanica in Treme to begin our little photo adventure. Valeria just moved to New Orleans from Boston and we were excited to show her some of our favorite haunts such as Lake Lawn Metairie Cemetery and Sacred Grinds. We wandered between the crypts as the sun set, casting brilliant hues of orange and purple light behind dramatic clouds. It was a reminder of how much fun one could have here without spending money.
Thanks so much to my pals who helped make an ordinary day into an extraordinary one. I needed it.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Favorite Photos from Tales of the Cocktail 2017 in New Orleans
Photos from Tales of the Cocktail 2017.
Tales of the Cocktail is like the Academy Awards for the bartending industry but with more drinking...or rather, prolonged drinking. The irony is that I hardly had anything to drink and focused instead on eating as well as I could, meditating daily and ensuring proper sleep. My days were long, some lasted up to sixteen hours. I ran on pure adrenalin and a low carb, healthy diet (a deeper discussion for another day).
The opportunity to work with so many people in the beverage industry was invigorating. I could have listened to legendary bartender and proprietor Charles Schumann all day and continued discussing the art of growing plants with Appleton master distiller, Joy Spence and the magic of lighting for portraiture with Grand Marnier master distiller, Patrick Raguenaud whose mischievous side I tried to capture. It's the other interests of the people I photograph that I like to train my lens on. I like to put my camera down and listen to their stories and opinions, people who are revered in their fields for the quality of their distilled labors. There's so much to learn from them.
Also, witnessing DJ Mixmaster Mike make tiles fall down from the ceiling of a venue on Bourbon Street was something that I know I'll unlikely witness ever again (you can actually see some of the falling tiles in one of the photos of his set). But here it is, the photos that I liked the most from my intense five days of work at this year's Tales.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
NEWS About My Upcoming Book: Ghosts of New Amsterdam
I'm excited to share news about my first book due to be released in October.
TriBeCa, Manhattan
“In one aspect, yes, I believe in ghosts, but we create them. We haunt ourselves.”
I'm really excited to announce the release of my photography book, Ghosts of New Amsterdam. It's a visually lyrical collection of photos that together compile my experience of living and visiting, New York City, the spiritual home of capitalism during a post-9/11 era; a time in which many of us have begun to wonder what the American Dream really is and what traditional values have changed and why. The visual text is subtle and I leaned more on metaphor than literal interpretation, which gave the project a dreamlike narrative. It's photojournalism if photojournalism was taken literally as a personal visual journal, like a diary.
The book is slated for an October release and will be available on Amazon as well as my site. I can't wait to share the cover, which is beginning to look exactly as I wanted.
As always, thanks for reading. Stay in touch.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Fourth of July on the Levee
Fireworks along the levee in New Orleans.
I'm a fan of going to the Bywater levee in New Orleans, sometimes called "The End of the World". People often make campfires there while the bright lights of Downtown sparkle in the background. On the 4th of July, many people gathered, danced, drank, lit fireworks and mingled with strangers as large boats streamed past us on the River.
About an hour before all of this, my wife and I were relaxing in the backyard, drinks in hand and listening to the pop of firecrackers coming off the Mississippi. I wasn't in the mood for a party but we left anyway, hoping that my mind might change. I danced for a little bit but didn't feel like socializing. I grabbed my camera and participated in my own way.
For more info, email: info@carlosdetres.com
Besides Jazzfest...
Photos from things that happened outside of Jazzfest.
I couldn't muster the strength to make it Jazzfest this year. I couldn't negotiate my disdain for crowds. I instead ventured my neighborhood with my wife and friends for a couple of nights and had a great time. It was good seeing, from outside, the bars packed with people going long into the night, whether here on vacation or visit.
There are only a very few photos from these nights here but I figured I'd share anyway.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
French Quarter Fest 2017
Photos from French Quarter Fest 2017.
The weather was perfect throughout the four days of festivities. Much of South Peter Street was closed to traffic, allowing people to meander between stages without feeling too confined to the sidewalks. As always, the people and the scenes around the musical performances were most interesting.
I like doing these little projects, like covering the FQFest because it's a great setting to work on compositions and light observations for future works. There are several projects in various phases of completion so this kind of practice is invaluable.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
The Path: Super Sunday in New Orleans
Photos of young Mardi Gras Indians from Super Sunday shot Uptown at A.L. Davis Park.
This past Sunday, Uptown was treated a gathering of Mardi Gras Indians called Super Sunday. If you don't know what it is, it's a tradition that dates back to 1880. It's passed down from generation to generation of boys and girls who begin learning the tradition at a very young age. You can read more about Mardi Gras Indians HERE.
I tended to focus myself on the young men, wondering what it was like to have this over-century old tradition passed onto me. There wasn't a baton passed to me when I was a kid. We played baseball, war and video games so I'm intrigued by the path of a young man or woman becoming a Mardi Gras Indian. I wanted to get a story, or at least the foundation of one that I could continue in the years to come.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Let's Be Bored at the Airport Together
Get that camera out if you're stuck at the airport.
We got stuck at MSY (Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport) for the day last Wednesday. I'm thinking of those stuck today at airports throughout the Northeast due to the wintry storms battering the area. If you've got a camera, go explore the airports. It's a lot more interesting than I previously thought before last week.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Bayou St. Blonde, New Orleans
Some snaps from the Left Brain Group's Bayou St. Blonde event in New Orleans.
Bayou St. Blonde was an event that took place on January 29th and 30th 2017. It was hosted by The LEFT BRAIN Group (my wife's company), which also does a chunk of my bookings throughout the year. Spread across five locations throughout the city, BSB hosted guests from all over the country.
I don't work in hair but I found it inspiring to see so many creative people gathered together to share new ideas and have more control over the future of this industry. I was especially proud of my wife who put this massive event together in relatively short time. Covering this event was a highlight of 2017 thus far.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
The Happiest Day of the Year is Followed by its Saddest
In case you feel like reliving the celebrations.
...I'm exaggerating, of course, but the post-Mardi Gras blues is real.
Only 348 more days until Mardi Gras 2018.
(Photos arranged in sequence of events.)
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Krewe of Oshun
The goddess Oshun, associated with water and love bless us last night.
“Oshun, also spelled Osun, an orisha (deity) of the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria. Oshun is commonly called the river orisha, or goddess, in the Yoruba religion and is typically associated with water, purity, fertility, love, and sensuality. She is considered one of the most powerful of all orishas, and, like other gods, she possesses human attributes such as vanity, jealousy, and spite.”
It was a wet night in New Orleans yesterday, which is fitting considering that the Krewe of Oshun is represented by the Yoruba goddess usually associated with water. Rain to an adult may seem like an inconvenience but to a kid, it's play time.
Lesson learned: Be a kid.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Autumn in the Swamp
It's not New Hampshire but it's still pretty!
In one of the few nature outings I did this past fall, I focused on the dying leaves and other evidence of seasonal change that occurs here in Louisiana (yes, THAT Louisiana). It's not the rust colored beauty of the mountains in Vermont or New Hampshire but it's still nice to look at.
I photographed this short series in the early evening. The croaking of frogs and the crunching sound of squirrels scrambling across a blanket of orange and red colored leaves resting on the cool ground accompanied me as I set up my camera on the tripod. I love these moments, being alone, breathing in the cool air and listening to nature doing its thing undisturbed by my presence.
*Click on photos to view full frame.
Email info@carlosdetres.com
Wandering the Old Streets of St. Augustine, FL
Anthropological photography through the historic streets of St. Augustine, Florida.
My shadow and I walking the grounds of the old Spanish fort, Castillo de San Marcos.
After a ten hour drive from New Orleans, I was in St. Augustine, visiting family. Although it took a few days to get going with my camera, I imagined the kinds of photos I wanted. The best part of photography is the time alone when it's just you and your camera, wandering a street, looking for something that tells a story. A detail such as a wall marked with old graffiti or a wall pocked with bullets from musket fire due to the executions that occurred on the side of an old fort.
It’s an old, old city, the oldest, continually operating European city in the United States of America. If you turn a corner and you’re paying attention, you could be treated to artifacts left behind from people who are no longer living. This is the kind of anthropology I love. The leftovers of our existence, resisting the change of the years. St. Augustine's rich history includes a significant role in the colonization of North America, the tragedy of the plight of Native Americans and the Civil Rights movement, from Frederick Douglas to Martin Luther King, Jr. and more. So much more.
One hypothetical thought that haunted me throughout my day of shooting in St. Augustine was of time travel. Can you imagine if a Native American or a Spanish colonist was resurrected from the 1500s and taken on a tour through the northeast coast of modern Florida?
For more info, please email info@carlosdetres.com
The Old Things of the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum in St. Augustine, FL
Photos from the old things of this museum in St. Augustine, Florida.
About a week before Hurricane Matthew brought it's climatological terror up through the eastern seaboard of Florida, I was in St. Augustine, visiting my family. My mom had recently begun working at the Ximenez-Fatio House Museum in the old part of town. It was a side of the city that I had rarely gone into. I fell in love with its old homes, buildings and super narrow streets.
My mom gave me a tour of the building where these very old things were placed throughout representing different eras of the building's history. Some of it was original to the previous occupants while others were brought in later.
At the time I photographed in this building, I thought, "I don't need a photo of the exterior." I kinda regret that now.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Losing Myself in Joshua Tree
Salvation in the desert while the U.S. is in conflict.
In the darkness of night, we had lain on the blanket, covering the desert sand that had begun to cool. The coyotes had been barking and howling at the crescent moon but then it stopped, the wind followed soon after, no longer brushing the dry leaves of desert plant life. Aryn fell asleep and then I was alone, staring at the scattered patches of tall grass and cactus. It was silent. My heart began to race and soon I could hear it, blood coursing in my ears set to the rhythm of my ever-increasing heart rate. My body and mind had never before experienced true silence. I was caught between panic and relaxation of a world without sound; the rhythm of the desert at night.
Before this day, I hadn't experienced the desert. I wasn't even sure that I'd like it, knowing that the wilderness of trees, brooks, hills and mountains was my preferred natural environment but I wanted to see it. I wanted to experience the dry heat and the hundreds of miles of sparsely inhabited land, a temporary isolation knowing that my stay wouldn't be long. It was like holding a firecracker and letting it go before it could explode in your hand.
Joshua Tree, California was an unexpected stay during the last week of our trip through the West Coast. We had wanted to see the desert but had figured we'd pass right through on our way to Las Vegas. I felt that I wanted to see more of it so we booked a room at a desert bungalow on the outer border of the Joshua Tree National Park.
That first day, we sat on the porch with the owner of the bungalow as well as another guest. We stared out into the desert. After some talk, we dipped into silence. A large-eared rabbit hopped throughout the front of the property. Mourning doves sitting on a power line cooed overhead and the wind blew intermittently as I inhaled and exhaled my breath. It was a peace I hardly knew. Meanwhile the outside world seemed to be falling apart with bombings, absurd statements from presidential candidates, shootings of American civilians and more. I felt then that I had no desire to return to the world from which I had come.
We stayed for two nights and although it was so very hot, I hardly remember what it felt like. Years ago, when I had gotten my first tattoo, I had wanted to get a piece that meant something to me. It was of a gecko. I later learned that it was a symbol of the desert, synonymous in some Native cultures with freedom. That's exactly how the environment of Joshua Tree and its surrounding region felt -- free.
Inquiries and info: info@carlosdetres.com
