NOTES
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
The Last Time New York Was Hardcore: B-Sides (Photos)
The b-side photos and backstory of my experience shooting The Last Time New York Was Hardcore written by Michael Stahl for Narratively.
Mike Stahl wrote an excellent article on the NYC hardcore scene of the 1990s that was published last week by Narratively. He'd been working on it for a long while before he asked me to get on board to photograph the story. He and I began freelancing within a year of each other and in all this time, we had yet to do a project together. I was excited to finally work with my friend on this story.
He and I had grown up on hardcore punk. Most of the bands I listened to were from California and Miami although we had some overlap with artists such as Sick of it All and Madball. Much of the NYC hardcore world didn't make it south to Florida so I discovered what I could. Biohazard was a big one, a band whose bassist previously replaced me in a band that I started in high school. There were other ones as well but that world was very far away during the pre-social media days.
This story began for me in Santa Monica, after a phone call with Mike Stahl when I offered to cut my monthlong West Coast trip short to photograph this piece. I had to. It was a subject I cared about and the chance to work with my pal was too good to pass. I was able to complete my trip uninterrupted. Once I returned home to New Orleans, I was back on a plane heading north to New York.
******
A group of ten to twelve people had gathered around a tour guide who was explaining the history of St. Marks. "This is where punk bands, you know, like grunge, played in the 90s." Mike and I chuckled as we passed them. We were walking to meet the subjects of his story in front of the former location of a music club -- now a sushi restaurant. Many of the people in the story trickled in, greeting each other, some for the first time in several years. I was able to put faces to names of those I had read about in previous drafts of Mike's story.
We walked to several of the old locations, all turned over to the dark side of New York; a gentrified reconstruction of a developer's idea of how the modern residents wants to live. Nearly every location we visited was polished, varnished; a smooth coat of stucco on the wall or worse. It was my romanticized vision of New York in the '90s that I missed but these men and women who went throughout town to see their favorite bands or play shows at these venues actually lived it.
I imagined gutter aroma wafting in the air, triggering a memory of a beer stained, old bar. A broken window or a smashed face, blood on the walls, a rumbling street, heaving with the energy of wandering hardcore fans going to church. That was all gone now and that's okay. New York changes. We change.
My favorite moment was walking into John Varvatos, the former location of CBGB's. The new store preserved a surprising amount of the old space that CBGB's had occupied, including the bar, wall paneling, fliers tacked onto the walls, and even the stickers on the air ducts. I watched these musicians and fans who played their asses off here, drank with friends, saw unknown and favorite bands, that smell of that stinking legendary bathroom, recall memories and seeing, for the first time, what this high end clothing store had done with the old place...THAT was special. There wasn't any amount of photography I could do to capture that. You had to be there. You had to drink it.
I knew that many of the photos from our trip to CBGB's wouldn't make it into the final cut of the article. Some of the context didn't make editorial sense. These photos were for us -- Mike, me, Lenny, Cesar, Dean, Kent, Alan, Virginia and whoever else's name I've forgotten.
Enjoy.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
The Artist's Work
Portraits from my Whiskey Dregs portrait and interview series.
St. Louis Cathedral, French Quarter, New Orleans
Here are some photos from my The Whiskey Dregs portrait and interview series. Some of these are yet to be posted but I wanted to share them in advance. I especially enjoy the how's and why's of an artists' process as well as those others who have inspired me in one way or another. I'm thankful to have found these people throughout New Orleans.
One Year in New Orleans 2016
Another year passes in New Orleans and I documented almost the whole damn thing. Here's a little bit of it.
We celebrated another year in New Orleans on July 20th. I'm a bit late. In 2016 we survived another Carnivale, enjoyed two Halloweens and made new friends. For this version of "One Year in New Orleans," I went for the straight documentation route. I considered including portraits I had made doing throughout the city but then decided that it didn't say much about my overall experience.
As you'll notice, I still have not gotten cemeteries out of my system. While there are less photos of these hallowed locations, I still couldn't help myself. I never can. Rather than creating three sequential posts, I decided to do one with a bunch of photos as an exercise to see what works together and what doesn't. It's for fun.
Considering the Dallas Shootings in a Bar with Strange Faces
In an ordinary bar in downtown Los Angeles with strangers. Photos from Santa Monica, Hollywood, Santa Clarita and the Los Angeles transit system.
Hollywood
It was the day after the Dallas shootings when eleven police officers were shot, five killed. I walked into a downtown dive bar in Los Angeles, sat on one of the barstools next to the gaming machine. I ordered a Blue Moon topped with a slice of orange and watched Maury Povich on the TV mouth revelations to astonished guests.
The room grew from a couple folks to a dozen or so, all apparently from different backgrounds. A Latin American woman juggled drink orders and come-ons from mens who were old enough to be her father. In the smattering of dialog that I picked up in that room, there was concern of the crisis in Dallas (the latest spear into the heart of America) as an old bearded man in a Hawaiian shirt ratted off his sexual conquests between here and Pasadena.
It was a hot day and I was drenched in sweat, trying to discern the streets of L.A., separating the cavernous, film reel decorated train stations between West Hollywood and the busy intersections of downtown. I was lost in a heap of thought, staring into the memory of gargantuan trees and the windless maze of train tunnels and streets that were not familiar to me.
We were all below, beneath the Mount Olympus of celebrities, recalling our misinformation of facts that too place during that dreadful week in America. Alton Sterling, Philandro Castile and those officers are closer to us in our struggle to adjust to the real facts of a crumbling society, and perched above it all, the faces of two presidential candidates with the audacity to lead a seemingly torn nation. But around me were flapping lips from different colored faces existing in harmony, drinking booze during a hot lunch hour. I knew that we were on the precipice of drastic action, a revolution on its way but when my chicken fingers and french fries arrived on a plate, nothing else mattered aside from the present moment.
Train Stations
Hollywood
Santa Clarita
Santa Monica and Venice
San Francisco and Sonoma Too
Onwards through San Francisco and Sonoma.
San Francisco, CA
A friend of mine had told me a long time ago, "You've got to get out to San Francisco. You'd love it." After hearing some of the recent reports of ultra-gentrification and busloads moving young techies from the city into Silicon Valley, I became concerned that I wouldn't have the right historical context to enjoy the city as I had hoped.
I had begun to realize that I had lost the stomach for the metropolis life and despite San Francisco being the most beautiful American city I'd ever seen, I was still craving the arid, vined hills of Sonoma from where I had just come as well as the gargantuan trees from that prehistoric forest where I enjoyed feeling small and inconsequential.
Sonoma, California
It was here where I learned that there is no longer a place for me in the big cities. I was preferring the vast vineyards with rows of vine that go up and down the arid hill; the West Coast domain of Bacchus, that craven of wine who sang the strong, loud song of debauchery bellowed from deep red-tinted lips from the old world where the marriage of agriculture and pleasure was consecrated. I was starting to appreciate, more than ever, the life of the villager or the small townie or the forest-bound hermit.
Sonoma, California
The beaches in San Francisco wasn't expected nor the beautiful vistas from hills where I could, on one side, see fog slowly reveal the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge and, on the other, houses edging nearly off the bluffs from which the ocean seemed to run to the end of the world. Out there, Japan, a long current separating continents but yet, despite the drama, there are parts of San Francisco that are quaint and private such as the pet cemetery beneath the 101 or the woods near Baker Beach.
After my first day there, I stayed in Berkley and desired nothing else but to leave cities once again to head south toward Santa Monica, and beyond that, one of the great deserts of North America.
The Redwood Forest and Crescent City, California
The literally dizzying splendor of the Redwood Forest is real.
“The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles … hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages … And we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? The planet isn’t going anywhere. WE are!”
Aryn and I were driving a stretch of road from Portland into the cool Northern region of California. Coordinating between the GPS and manual instructions from the proprietors of an Airstream, our heads bobbed up and down and dragged left to right through the winding roads, descending deeper into the dark forest, beneath a verdant canopy of trees.
Do you know that moment when you see something for the first time and it's so foreign that your stomach turns? Or maybe it was the spatial difference and massive size of the first Redwood tree, which suddenly came upon us. This barked giant was in front of our Kia Soul and then as we turned the corner, it was on the right. We both gasped. I had never seen a tree so large in my life.
Let's go further: I'd never seen such an alien landscape in my life. Jurassic Park came to mind.
Off some mile marker, in the forest, was a clearing that we turned into. There was a bungalow to the left, a parked RV in the back and across from that was the Airstream we had booked using AirBnb but surrounding all of this was dense vegetation, tree stumps, as large as our car, with saplings growing from the ancient, ringed rims. The first breath of air I took after exiting from our parked vehicle was as crisp as ice and it flowed through my lungs so easily.
The Redwood Forest was only going a brief overnight stop before driving further south to Sonoma. We gathered what we needed and drove a short distance west to see the Pacific Ocean. It was just before sunset and the temperature had dropped, while people in shorts walked on the sand, making me wonder "how can you tolerate this cold"? Sand blew all around us, skirting the beach as strong waves crashed against the rocky shore. We walked to the end of a long, long pier to stare straight into a domed faced rock that bulged out of the ocean. I looked down, imagined how cold the water must feel but looking back up was only the slimy leaves of kelp bobbing along the dark water.
After exploring the beach, we walked up a hill to a lighthouse that sat on the rocky turf like an ominous beacon, calling to the night. Like so much in California, the structure and adjoined home fit snuggly into the landscape. The sun set while a sea breeze misted our dry faces. At twilight, we returned to our car and drove back into the forest to enjoy wine we had brought from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
We awoke early the next morning, had breakfast, gathered our stuff to hit up the Redwoods National Park, followed by a drive through the Pacific Coast Highway down to Sonoma. The road meandered between the ocean and the forest, providing un-friggin-believable views of un-friggin-believable natural world. It was like driving down the gullet of a beautiful monster that could eat you at any moment if it so desired. As long as we stuck to the road, we'd be safe. But we didn't.
Driving slowly, I saw a clearing to the left of me where below was a river bed that was nearly run dry. We parked the car, walked down onto the smooth stones, polished by thousands of years of running water. We were alone and I felt so close to some kind of spiritual message but I couldn't discern its meaning. I just knew it felt good. The trees and the water and the sun and the stones all felt good. There is something godly and human and flawless about being alone in a natural setting. This was a theme that often repeated throughout our trip. Nothing will ever be the same.
Send questions over to info@carlosdetres.com
Multnomah Falls, Oregon
One of those, "I can't believe it's real" views.
Nature removes the veil between civilization and the human spirit. I thrive in these environments and when I return to cities, I'm reminded of how uncomfortable I sometimes feel in them. This desire to return to a natural habitat grows stronger as I get older. Wandering the streams, waterfalls, mountains and trees makes it so much easier to quiet the mind and meditate.
We made it up to the overlook of Multnomah Falls where I let my bare feet get massaged by the drift of the cold stream emptying out from the high cliff. I sat on a large boulder, closed my eyes and listened, with all of my being, to the sound of water running through smooth stones and echo between the trees. Amazing.
We eventually made it to the Vista House, overlooking the Columbia River Gorge. The scene looked unreal...literally not real. It makes you feel small. It makes you feel that whatever we do to this planet, it will, as George Carlin said, "shake us off." Mother Nature will be fine, we're the ones who are screwed.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
White Rose Estate, Willamette Valley, Oregon
First forays into Oregon's wine country. Not friggin' bad.
I left New Orleans on Saturday to meet with Aryn in Portland to kick off our month-long trip through the West Coast. While sitting near the window of the plane, I could see gorges, plateaus, cliffs, forests and sometimes a house in the middle of nowhere. As the plane descended into Portland's airport, the difference between this city and the one I'd left couldn't have been more stark. The area is green, hilly and beautiful without the usual blight one generally finds surrounding airports.
The next morning we headed to Willamette Valley to visit White Rose Estate. We made a right onto McDougall Road from the Pacific Highway, going up twisting roads when I suddenly said to Aryn, "stop the car!". She pulled over to the side and to the right of us was a gorgeous vista of grapevine groves, rust-colored soil carpeting verdant hills and, in the distance, the snowy peak of Mount Hood while, further still, through a haze, the summit of Mount Saint Helens. .
When I got to try the wine from this region, I wanted to ask so many questions. Of course I kept my mouth shut and nodded as taster pours were made into my bell-shaped glass. We walked the property and I grabbed a handful of the rust-colored soil, letting its soft grains sift between my fingers. I tried sniffing it to see if there was some quality about it that I could taste in my wine but I couldn't. To be honest, I wasn't really sure what to look for. Was it "earthiness"? I wanted to get closer to what it was I was drinking and the history of the agriculture that brought this wine to us. This was only my first day in wine country. I hope to learn a lot more.
If you have any recommendations, just list them in the comments. Thanks!
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
So close that you can feel the sting and hear the buzz
I got in super close while shooting at the New Orleans Tattoo Museum. Click to view more.
A few months ago, I started working on a project in conjunction with The New Orleans Tattoo Museum in Central City. I'll share more news about that in a future post but I wanted to share what we've been doing so far. I've worked closely with proprietor and artist, Adam Monetegut, which has given me a much closer relationship to the art of tattooing than I've ever had. If you get a chance to go down there, check it out. It's a really cool space, especially if you're into the history and art of tattooing.
During my most recent shoot at the location, I got the chance to get in real close to see how it looks when the needle pecks at the skin. It's not easy to get great shots using a macro lens when you're that close and in a setting that I'm documenting but it's been a great and fun challenge. As you'll see below, we still have a long way to go before this project is complete.
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Florida Obscura
An exercise in reflection on the roots of where I come from.
Whenever I'm back home in Florida,
I return to places that I'd visited in the past
and photograph them,
mostly alone,
to further understand the person I've become.
It's personal anthropology. The cloud of my thirteen years in New York City has cleared. Here in New Orleans, Louisiana, I almost feel retired, not from work but from a lifestyle that dictated the choices I made and the directions I've gone. It's suffice to say that I'm at a reflective point in my life and that the specter of my home state of Florida looms silently over my work as I continue identifying my personal style and future creative goals.
The photographs below are part of an exercise to isolate the common threads of my work. It happens easily because there are always subconscious elements that are introduced into my portraiture and topics of interest. Enjoy.
Painted in Black + White
Black and white remixes of older photos.
I sometimes go through old photos, remixing them a little to see if there are particular qualities that will be highlighted more if they were changed to black and white or color. It also works as an exercise because there could be a perspective that I had not considered before. Here is the result of these experimentations.
If you've been following me on Instagram then you've seen some of these already but there are some here that I've never before shared.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
New Prints for Sale at Jewels in The French Quarter
My spooky self manifests as prints, which are now on sale at Jewels in the French Quarter.
Hey all! I'm happy to announce these three new prints in three sizes for sale at Jewels in the French Quarter.
Sizes:
5x7
8.5x11
13x19
Prices range from 8-$45
Just a note, the one all the way to the right ("The Tarot Reader #2") is also the cover of David "Zombieboy" Storm's upcoming book.
Jewels
905 Decatur Street
New Orleans
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Social Commentary Street Photography from New York City
Social commentary through street photography. This week's subject is New York City.
There's a reason why we usually think of New York City when someone mentions "street photography." The architecture make great backdrops to the frenetic energy that affects everything from people to dogs to the pigeons and rats that live together. With up to 12 million people interacting with their environment and eachother every day, there's rarely a moment when anyone notices you. It's the benefit of often being invisible to the crowds of people who are too busy and in too much of a hurry to pay any attention to the photographer walking around taking pictures.
When I go to New York for work, I make sure to take 2-3 days to roam the streets, easily clocking between 10-16 miles of walking through every corner. The Financial District is my current favorite neighborhood to photograph. When I previously mentioned that you are invisible in New York, you are TOTALLY invisible when you're in Lower Manhattan. This part of the City is dually a tourist destination and, obviously, the financial capital of the world.
The photos below are my observation of the disconnect I see between humans living in such dense and energetic urban environments and the tranquility and spiritually invigorating elements of nature. This may evolve into a bigger project but for now, it's what I've been doing during my visits.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
#BTS: New York
Because nobody likes squares.
I really love doing portrait sessions. Sometimes the work can look somber but the behind the scenes stuff reveals that it's almost always fun and laughs. The versions that are being selected for marketing are very elegant and beautiful but I like the contrast of humor while working these shoots.
Most of the photos included in this post are from the shoots recently done in New York. Collaborating with talented people with strong chemistry brings the whole thing together. I build relationships with people who I may never meet again but will never forget. Thanks to all who did the hard work, especially those at the salon De La Mer.
The others are from work I did with ProHairKit, IRFE and The Morning Sea.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Witch Inspired Photo Shoot in Bywater
The four of us got witchy at the End of the World.
The first time I saw Chloe Rose's headpieces was at the Mardi Gras market at the New Orleans Healing Center.They were elegant, classic, edgy and reminiscent of the colors and materials one would find in nature. I knew I had to work with her. A little while after Mardi Gras ended, we met for coffee at the Orange Couch in the Marigny. From there we discussed imagery, our favorite colors to work with, photographers that we like, etc.
The shoot was canceled at least twice due to the weather but finally the right day came. It was overcast, the temperature was comfortable and with the makeup artist Radiator and Aryn (my wife) agreeing to model, we packed into my little yellow car and headed into the Bywater to pick up Chloe on the way to the levee.
We hiked up the side of the levee to find that the small wooded area just above the water line had been engulfed by the river. I thought that maybe we were screwed at this location but we found the large end of a tree had fallen, creating a viable platform for Aryn to crouch into. I looked around, saw the clouds, the light and how it made the green grass and white little flowers pop. We started at our first setup, just under the top of the levee and went to work.
Photography: Carlos Detres
Headpiece: Chloe Rose
Makeup: Radiator
Model: Aryn Detres
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Portrait and Low Light Test of Sony A6300
The Sony A6300 with the 16-50mm kit lens at work in both portrait and low light street photography settings.
PREFACE: This isn't a super technical piece, just some thoughts of using the Sony A6300 in real life settings. I'm not big on pixel peeping or needing the most sharp lens of all time, ever in the Universe. To give a little insight about myself: one of my favorite cameras to shoot with is a years-old digital compact, the 10.1 megapixel Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7, which has limitations that make it merely a decent camera to shoot at night with (you can see photos I've taken with it HERE). In fact, most of my upcoming book ESOTERICA is shot with this little bad boy (it really is a great little camera).
For this post, I've included photos from a commercial portrait session and some street shots. Most of these pictures were made using the Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens while the portrait work was done with a Lensbaby Composer Pro equipped with a double optic lens attached via a f-mount to e-mount adapter from Vello. These photos have not been retouched or edited and come straight out of the camera.
Now that that's out of the way, let's get into this camera and why I felt it was time to jump into the Sony mirrorless world. I've been wanting a small, lightweight travel camera that I could use for studio, night time street photography, had a viewfinder, could shoot decent video and had fast autofocus. Until the announcement of the Sony A6300, there wasn't a camera that got me excited. I pre-ordered the camera, considering seriously that I might return it. So how did it do?
I don't know if it's because I haven't paid much attention to what's been released since the Nikon D800 but for me, the Sony A6300 had a game-changey quality about it. The number of settings in the menu, expanded metering and autofocus options was staggering. I've become so accustomed to the older Nikon cameras that looking at this thing was like, "Ok wtf do I do with this?" The custom buttons and focus lock are in awkward places but that comes with a camera that's smaller than the Fujifilm x100s that I recently sold. And maybe because my hands are big.
The real test would come from shooting with only ambient light in some of the darker corners of New Orleans, specifically the French Quarter. I was impressed by how it performed in low light conditions with mostly usable photos shot at 12,800 ISO with noticeable noise in the shadows.
Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens @16mm, f/3.5, 1/30th second, 12,800 ISO
The autofocus, when I thought I knew what I was doing nailed nearly every lighting scenario. The kit lens isn't my favorite but it did better than I thought it would.
Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens @17 mm, f/3.5, 1/125 second, 12,800 ISO
The retractable LCD screen on the back of the camera was hella fun to use as well. I'm usually a little shy when I'm doing street photography so being able to look down into the viewfinder made it so easy for me to shoot without being noticed. Huge plus.
Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens @50mm, f/5.6, 1/50th second, 6400 ISO
Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens @50mm, f/5.6, 1/50th second, 6400 ISO
Did I mention the autofocus?
Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens @16, f/3.5, 1/125th second, 12,800 ISO
The autofocus is probably the best I've used on any system but the manual focus peaking assist is effin' tops! It might actually be easier to use a manual lens on this camera in low light settings than an auto lens on most other cameras. Once you select this option, you can use various colors to indicate your focal distance so there's no hunting, you just follow the focus, use the manual assist to zoom in on your subject (although you don't have to) and click away. Just a note, it's kind of a pain to use on a zoom but easier on a prime.
I did find that if you're intending on using your DSLR lenses, that you have to use a faster shutter speed than before because it becomes very lens heavy. This camera is of durable material but it is lighter than the 24-70 DSLR zoom you may have lying around.
Lensbaby Composer Pro, Double Optic Lens, f/4, 1/400th second, ISO 100 on a F-mount to E-mount adapter by Vello
Oh and I forgot to mention that the autofocus system doesn't work when you have a lens adapter on but as I mentioned before, this isn't that big of a problem. I brought two cameras with me to the portrait session I did on Saturday: the Nikon D800 and the Sony A6300, just to try it out in this kind of setting. I ended up using the Sony A6300 for 1/3rd of the shoot. It was fun, light, allowed me various options and played well with my PocketWizards.
Lensbaby Composer Pro, Double Optic Lens, f/4, 1/400th second, ISO 100 on a F-mount to E-mount adapter by Vello
Yeah, this is a dope camera. I love it. I'll be bringing it along today for my portrait session with DJ Hektik so let's see how it does then. Thanks for reading.
Sony 3.5-5.6 16-50mm kit lens @16mm, f/3.5, 1/50th second, 6400 ISO
I Love Super Sunday
A beautiful day at A.L. Davis Park with Mardi Gras Indians.
Yesterday was supposed to be a photo shoot that I was really excited to do but we canceled it due to strong winds that were forecast (it ended up being a beautiful day). Aryn and I instead rode our bikes to A.L. Davis Park to watch the Indians parade for Super Sunday. I packed a small, compact camera with a zoom. I had actually decided that I wasn't going to take pictures but I brought the camera anyway, just in case.
It was really a perfect day. We laid in the park, shared polish sausage and downed them with dollar beers sold to us by a man and a woman who had set up shop in the back of their pickup truck. It was Aryn who started to take pictures while I sat down with a plate of crawfish, sausage, corn on the cob, turkey neck and boiled potatoes (all for 5 bucks) as I watched the Indians, revelers and musicians pass by. After I finished, the picture bug kicked in and I didn't stop from then on.
I've been shooting a lot with this little camera, the Panasonic Lumix that was released probably five years ago. I typically shoot with only prime lenses but I enjoyed taking advantage of the zoom because it allowed me to stay out of the way of every one.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
PAGAN
Will photos from the PAGAN shoot springboard a series based on practices of ancient pagans?
When I was last in New York, I coordinated and did a photo shoot with hair stylist, Andrea Donoghue. The inspiration behind the shot was "pagan". We wanted the essence of the natural elements while highlighting the different hair styles. If you've viewed my portfolio, you may have already seen a few of these.
I've always had a fascination with the esoteric and pagan rituals of ancient times and its continued practice in modern society. This was a simple, straightforward shoot but it was a launching pad for other ideas I'd like to pursue.
As I've written before, I'm not a fan of shooting in-studio, despite its convenience. Maybe one of these days I'll do a photo shoot completely based on people who worship and respect nature and honor old spirits. That's my kind of religion.
Hair by Andrea Donoghue
Makeup by Marie Schumacher
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
Dieselboy at Republic, New Orleans
Photos of drum and bass DJ Dieselboy's performance at Republic in New Orleans.
The last time I saw Dieselboy perform was about 5 years ago in Miami. Being one of my favorite drum and bass DJs, my mouse cursor very easily glided over the "purchase tickets" button online. I don't go to too many shows anymore, preferring instead to walk around in the dark with a camera or two slung over my shoulder. I'm glad I went to this one.
Email: info@carlosdetres.com
