Greetings from New Orleans: An Experiment in Found Art

A few weeks prior to Hurricane Katrina, I completed this photo project with the intent of displaying the images in a New Orleans gallery.  Clearly that's not going to happen any time soon.  When I evacuated my now-flooded house,  these photos were among the few possessions that I saved.  I look at the images now and realize with some despair what's been lost.  New Orleans has been my adopted home for a total of ten years,  and for the most part it's been a love affair that has enriched my life enormously.  While the city certainly had its share of problems prior to Katrina,  the good has always outweighed the bad,  elegance has always balanced out crassness, and the distinctive cultural contributions of its music, food, and architecture have been preserved throughout the cities neighborhoods for centuries.  Now that the city has been reshaped by this disaster,  I wonder what I'll be returning to in the coming weeks.  I worry that the quirkiness of its people and that the physical charm of the landscape will be irreparably harmed.  I look at these images now and feel privileged to have been witness to the glory that was New Orleans.  Hopefully, a reverse diaspora will occur over the next few months to reinvigorate this beloved and beleaguered town.

[from BoingBoing]