Too Late, I Realized How Romantic the French District’s Doors and Windows Are
New Orlean’s French District is full of so much wonder and delight that it took me a bit to turn my attentions to their doors and windows. By the time I did, I had little time left so I have a small selection. MUST GO BACK if only for more doors and windows.
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- Doors and Windows No. 01
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- Doors and Windows No. 02
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- Doors and Windows No. 03
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- Doors and Windows No. 04
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- Doors and Windows No. 05
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- Doors and Windows No. 06
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- Doors and Windows No. 07
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- Doors and Windows No. 08
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- Doors and Windows No. 09
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- Doors and Windows No. 10
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- Doors and Windows No. 11
Insane Asylum Revisited
I admit that I was not thinking of storytelling when I went to the mental hospital back in 2010 to get photos. I was just curious and wondered what I’d find. I had my Canon EOS 30D and a 50mm f1.8 prime lens with me. The 50mm lens precluded any kind of wide-angle shot so some of these photos are a bit cropped.
Crazy Blue Car
That’s my car. Yes, it’s blue. It’s not inconspicuous so it didn’t surprise me when I returned from a short jaunt into the broken window building that a cop car was slowly passing by, probably noting down the license plate. When he saw me and my camera, he waved me on and said, “Be careful.”
The above is the only wide shot I have of the premises and I had to take it from a distance. This is one building of many and for some reason I must have really liked it because I have lots of photos of it. Perhaps it’s because I love the mechanical-looking thing right there in front of my car. The building is, I believe, the 1894 laundry building. My impression of the other buildings were of dormitories—long buildings with lots of windows, one for each room.
Mechanical Device---It's a bit high key, intentionally.
I love this thing. It has something to do with the laundry building. I don’t know what its function is…steam venting? clothes chute? ??? I slipped between the fence and the wall on the right and was able to look down into what I am calling the incinerator. It seems to be a place where they build fire in brick ovens.
Incinerator---entryway 01
When I said that the premises are not secured, I really mean they are not secured. The place is easily accessed right here through the incinerator…
Unsecured Entrance 02
…and here, through a basement door.
Don't cut yourself as you squeeze through the window!
Please don’t ask what I was thinking when I took this photo at such a bizarre angle! I think I was trying to be cute and failed. Anyway, another way in. I would go back just to get a decent shot of this door.
My guess as to why the premises are not as secure as they should be is because of the on-sight police station. Cops were patrolling all over the place…I think they were keeping an eye on me to make sure I maintained my innocent-photographer profile.
Arched Window
What intrigued me the most about this window is it’s symbolic relationship to a church. I included the poles just to add a sense of the cross to this image. This is the 1886 power plant.
Insanity Please
Looking through the arched windows and into the power plant you find appropriate graffiti. INSANITY, PLEASE.
Electric St
Around the corner is Electric St. More than any other image, this gives me the chills because I believe electric shock therapy was one way they treated the insane. I’m sure this is really connected to the power plant, but still…. (Actually, if you look at the sign, it doesn’t say St., it says Sh…Electric SHOCK??? I’m sticking with St.)
Textured Door---Just because I love weathered doors
A beautiful door.
Trashed Fence
Discarded Chain Links
Behind the Power Plant is a pile of trash. I chose the photos that showed discarded fencing material…odd, since I think of fences as keeping people either in or out and this place definitely fits the description of keeping people in or out. I didn’t show smashed TV’s or broken toilets, though.
Oh, all right. Here’s the toilet.
Broken Toilet
There. I really do not like photos like this. Grime makes me uncomfortable. If I had to clean this area up, I would insist on a hazmat suit with huge gloves and head gear.
What's over the wall?
Sometimes I wonder what the inmates (yes, I will call them inmates) saw when they passed by this tower with the high wall. Did they long to leave? Or did they care? I don’t have the answer.
[Central State Hospital for the Insane opened in 1848 and closed in 1994, 146 years of serving Indiana's mentally ill. And if you wonder what happened to the patients when it closed, well, I'm not quite sure. Some went home to their families, but not as many as you would think; some ended up rooming together; few ended up homeless. I am unable to find specifics and the research done is sketchy as to outcomes of the patients, whether that is due to privacy issues or due to not asking the questions to which I wanted answers!]
69/365 A Tip From Piet Mondrian
69/365
Early one morning I drove down Washington Street in downtown Indianapolis on my way to work. It was at a time when the morning light filtered its way through the forest of buildings and selectively lit one building over another. Until that morning, I had never paid attention to this building. It was on a side-street but the way the light illuminated the area, I couldn’t help but glance at this beautiful Mondrian-inspired building. I didn’t stop to photograph it in the moment because I was on a tight schedule to get to work. But I referenced the building for a later photo shoot.
Martin Luther King Dinner Event
It was at this time, also, that I was searching for ideas for a print ad design. One of the parameters was that it be black and white. The publication was for a campus event. My past experience with this publication taught me that it was run by students who didn’t know really what they were doing and the other advertisers (read: campus schools and departments) didn’t understand how color converts to black and white and therefore sent in color ads that were printed in black and white…not very flattering. Although it wasn’t a high quality publication, it would reach a lot of people. I wanted my ad to POP off the page. The best way to do this would be to use high contrast, and what better high contrast than black and white with no shades of gray? So keeping that in mind, I remembered the windows and realized that I could also be inspired by Piet Mondrian. They used my ad on the inside back cover, which is a cherry position.
Inspiration comes from different sources. I keep learning to open my eyes and observe and wonder.
61/365 Winter View
61/365
I spent cold days in January looking out windows. For three years I lived in a two-story bungalow in the trashy part of Irvington (a subdivision of Indianapolis). And although the neighborhood offered up frightening experiences, the view from the windows always comforted me. I watched steam from my neighbor’s chimney rise into the cold, evening air, teasing the moon with puffy, tender touches. This view is from the bathroom window, the room where the tub could at any moment fall through the floor down into the living area. The winter view compelled me. In spite of the horrors of that neighborhood, I discovered snatches of beauty. Wherever one goes, beauty exists.
60/365 Window Frosting
60/365
I loved looking out the bedroom window of my charming Irvington antique home, especially in the winter when the inside of the window frosted up just as wildly as the outside and made the whole world beautifully abstract.
May your life be equally as beautiful and as wild and as abstract! Happy 2012.
32/365 Peace
32/365
This is my wish; that the window into the heart is clear and that peace is found therein.
