Hands

I wanted to post this because it won't fit in my essay. Saturday morning when I went to the West Bank site, the team from Gustavus was playing a game that involved slapping hands and I got this shot. Enjoy!

Sunday

One day to sleep in, 7:30am! Saturday night at dinner, while playing operator, we were told we had to be down in the lobby at 10am. Somehow, it got changed to 9:30am? No phone call guys? We packed in our soccer mom vans and headed to the airport. Interesting car ride there... Our plane left New Orleans and headed for Dallas, except the plane showed up an our late. Well we missed our flight from Dallas to Minneapolis which caused CHAOS. I don't even want to explain in detail. 5 people got on a plane, and the rest flew to Arkansas, spent the night, and had a crappy day in Chicago because mother earth likes to snow. ugh. I'm not blogging for Monday because we spent the entire day in the airport and I got crabby. And i'm home now.

Otherwise, it was a fantastic trip, I didn't want to leave! I'm really excited to see how everyone's essays come together! Thanks for the trip everyone!!

Saturday

AH, now that i am home, this might be hard to do. Let see. We started off the day with a swamp tour, of course, no one could get in the vans by 7:45 like we were supposed to, so we got there 5 minutes late. stupid. but we still made it, and we left bethany behind on the dock! The best part of that tour was seeing a 13 foot gator eat marshmallows! After the tour we got dropped off where americorp volunteers were planting trees. It was the editorial class assignment but somehow all the essay kids were there too. It was hot out, and Brett planted a tree. Our class gathered in one of the "galleries" on the block and decided it would be a good idea to be done shooting for the day. Then we ended up in the 9th ward taking more pictures. I got yelled at by a certain someone and started crying (picture above). It started downpouring, and we met a man who stayed through the storm, then gave him money. Finally we got back to the hotel and slept for 2 hours! We wanted to have a group dinner for the final night so we ended up at Crecent City Grill ( i think ). Afterwards a few of us ended the night on Bourbon Street. Let's get ready for Sunday!

Friday

It was another early morning. Brett took Antonio and I to another Habitat site on the West Bank. The people that were working there like to call it the "Best Bank." When we got to the site there was only one volunteer team there. They called themselves "Team Tay." Tay was one of their classmates. She had cancer since she was 6, and one of her goals was to do this Habitat project in New Orleans. She died last month, and all of her classmates wanted to come for her. There was a man in a kilt, with his bag pipes playing a song for the team. It put me in tears. Once the other group showed up i noticed that three girls has crawfish hats on. They were very interesting hats. Then realizing they were from Gustavus! This whole group was alot of fun, they started out their morning playing a "hand" game, not sure what it was called.

After we were done shooting at Habitat, we picked up a few others at the hotel and headed for the Cemetery. I wanted to go with because I hadn't seen them yet. It was so hot out, and with the white stone bouncing the sun, i tried to stay in the shade as much as i could. We met a grave digger, if they are even called those anymore. It was his first week on the job. After the Cemetery we met up with the Editorial class at the park to have a picnic. It was our job to stop at Wal-Mart and pick up lunch. Brett gave us a $30 budget and we walked out of there with $85. OOPS! We had the rest of the day to ourselves which was really nice! I fell asleep while my pictures were downloading onto my computer. Us girls wanted to go shopping so we headed down Chartres St. and ended up on Canal. The last stop was to Cafe Du Monde (i think) to get the fried donuts Colleen had mentioned at the beginning of the trip. We got them for tomorrow breakfast but had to eat one while they were still hot. For dinner, a few of us decided we should go to Jaun's Flying Burrito, since we didn't get to go the first night we were here. We were planning on taking the bus, and it never came. So we started walking thinking that the bus would come eventually, but it didn't. Half way there we found out the everyone was else was already at the restaurant (thanks for calling us.) So we all got to sit at the same table. Tomorrow our plan is to go on a Swamp Tour and see some gators!

Thursday

I finally got to sleep in until 8am! I waited for Antonio to get back from taking pictures in the French Quarter, then we took the ferry over to Algiers.  We were over there to take pictures of some guys house, i don't remember his name.  We walked for at least 45 minutes down the same road, took a right, went for about three blocks and decided we should turn around.  It was kind of sketchy.  Once we got back from Algiers I wanted to go to another Habitat site so a few of us got in the van ready to go.  We went to a camera shop to pick up some film, then realized by the time we got to the site they would be cleaning up.  We decided to take a drive down Tchoupilopolous street, or whatever it is called. We had about 400 names for it.  It lead us to Audoban Park.  I would say we were there for about an hour, and we saw an alligator!  Once we got back our class was editing pictures in the hotel lobby.  Almost everyone went to dinner together to get pizza, then followed that up with a show at the House of Blues.  I didn't make it that far into the concert until I had to leave to sleep.  I didn't take any pictures for my essay this day but here is the alligator!

Wednesday

It was another early morning, I went with the editorial class over the the Habitat for Humanity site in Musician's Village. We had an hour to ourselves before we could actually go into the site, so we were just going around the neighbor and see what pictures we could get. I snuck in a little early. We were there for about three hours and walked to a store nearby and got lunch. While the workers were on their lunch break, one of the groups that was there, was a jazz band, so they did a concert. It was really great because the local musicians in the area came over and sang, and played the drums. Tonight we are having our critique at 5pm, and a curator from a museum is coming.

Tuesday

Amanda, Antonio and I got up at 5:30am to go out with Colleen and Brett to get the sunrise light. We went down Rampart, and then onto the lower 9th ward. We were out for about two hours, then came back to the hotel. Brett took us out again within the next half hour to go back down there to get a few more shots. The first place we stopped, there was actually 4 volunteer groups cleaning out a site, we asked if we could take pictures while they were working and gave them our contact information. The pictures on this post are of them working as well as the houses we saw down there. After that we had a tour set up at the Odgen Museum. 7 of us got together after the museum and went to lunch and LaBayou on Bourbon Street. A few tried fried alligator! Tonight we have our first critique of our pictures we have taken so far.

First Day - Monday

After an early morning flight we finally got to New Orleans.  Colleen picked us up at the airport and we had to go get our rental vans.  They are soccer mom vans.  Everyone was squished.  We got to the hotel and unpacked a little bit and grabbed lunch.  4 girls and myself went down the street to the bakery and had some loaded baked potatoes.  After lunch we went on a guided tour.  We couldn't leave the bus so all of my shots are through the tinted window.  We took the city bus to dinner, which was supposed to be Jaun's Flying Burrito, but it was closed for renovation.  So we walked down Magazine Street for what seemed like a mile.  Half of us ate at Nacho Mama's and half went to Bulldogs.  We waited on the street corner for about an hour for the bus, and finally made it back to the hotel to sleep.

Change in Topics

Now I will be doing my photo essay on Habitat for Humanity down in NOLA.  We will be following certain groups and going to the sites that they are rebuilding.  As well as going to Camp Hope.  This is a camp that the volunteers can stay at while they are down in New Orleans.

6 More for Brett

4 Pictures That Describe My Work

What I'm Thinking About

For my photo essay in New Orleans, I am thinking about doing something with the prisons or crime. Another option would be photographing the Habitat for Humanity. A Thousand a Day Challenge, will be going on the same week as we are there.