Day 2

Like Monday morning, today was yet another early one for the crew. We got up at 5:15AM for a sun rise photo shoot over in the upper ninth ward of New Orleans. It is insane on how much it looked as though Katrina just hit the city a month ago. Houses were abandoned, some torn all apart, and a lot still had spray paint markings on them from when they were inspected by officials in search for missing people. It was a short little hour long shoot until the sun light got too harsh and we headed in for breakfast.

After we settled down a bit from our early morning shoot. Me and three other students set off to meet with a man named Robert Green, who live in the lower ninth ward. Robert Green, a St. Olaf Alumni, talked with us, shared stories with us, and shared his experience with us about Katrina for the hour or so we were able to be there. His house was located right behind one of the major levies the broke due to a barge smashing into it. Robert, as of now, still lives in a FEMA trailer after 4 years of the disaster, however, his new home which was being built next door as we were talking with him, should be ready to go for him to move into in the next 2 or 3 weeks. Robert is one of the most interesting guys I have every spoke with, and I was bummed we had to call it quits so soon. I really hope to come back soon, and see Robert's new place sometime!

After our visit with Robert, I came back to the hotel and had a nice long break until my shooting started for my project. I met up with an amazing musician I met through a friend named John Rankin. I haven't heard a guitar played so well before! It was an awesome experience listening to John play at the Columns Hotel. He was accompanied by a clarinet and saxophone player named Tom Fischer, and that really gave the sound of the New Orleans flavor that you would expect to hear. It was a great two hour long set and I am looking forward to popping in John's CD and getting his music onto My iPod. John also was able to give me some great tips on other places to go in New Orleans for jazz, and also told me some musicians to look up. I'm hoping to meet up with more real soon and continue on with my photo essay.

For now, I'm heading off to bed. I get to sleep in a little tomorrow morning so I want to take advantage of that. We will meet up with photographers from the local newspaper in town, and go out and see places in New Orleans that would be good places to shoot for our projects. It's going to be a long day, so I'm going to catch some shut eye and I'll get back to you all tomorrow! Enjoy some of the pictures from our sun rise shoot for now!