Social Distancing on Bourbon Street
Lately there has been a world wide pandemic due to Covid-19. Many cities nation wide have shuttered their drinking establishments and entertainment venues. Living as a photographer in New Orleans, I knew I wanted to document the emptiness of the streets. Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of the city is world famous as a place for drinking, partying and general debauchery. It’s typically filled with tourists and party goes nearly every hour of the day. It’s very rare to see the street entirely empty of people. This was the perfect opportunity to head down and photograph this rare occurrence.
Since I live a short drive away from the French Quarter, I waited till about 10p.m. to head down. Besides myself, there were a few others aimlessly walking around taking in this strange scene. Cars slowly crawling up the street with the driver’s and/or passenger’s phones sticking out the window recording the street. Considering the amount of people on the street, the animal life was more inclined to roam the streets in search of food, namely rats. If you’ve ever been to Bourbon Street, you more than likely remember what the smell was like. One word to describe it would be, Strong. The night I was there, it was noticeably not as strong, not completely pleasant but not the usual stench.
One constant thing in the French Quarter were the amount of pan handlers on the street. A few different homeless people came up asking for change or dollar bills. I did have one man stumble up to me and mumble for change or dollar bills. His face was contorted in such a way that was very unsettling. After informing him that I have nothing to give he gave me a strange look and asked me if I would like to take a photo of the tattoo on his leg. Without hesitation he pulls up his pant leg to display the very prominent swastika on his leg. Now I must admit I wasn’t completely ready for such thing to happen to me especially being that this person was in fact African American. Such a strange encounter and I shouldn’t have expected anything less during such a strange time. I declined to take the photo and he went along his way into the night.
Another strange encounter occurred when I was setting up to do the shot above. Two men approached me informing me there was a huge rat at my feet. After jumping out of the way as to not have a rat run up my leg they proceed to ask me for money, one guy offers to be in one of my photos for $10. I let him know over and over again he would merely be a shadow since it’s dark and I’m doing a 30 second exposure. He was completely set on making $10 from me so he insisted that I take his photo.
I would’ve been very impressed if he could actually stand still for 30 seconds straight but that was not the case. After showing him the photo he decided to bring the price down. “OK you can’t see me but can you give me something man?” I honestly had no money to give him so after a bit of back and forth he finally continued on his way.
I really like the way the neon lights were illuminating really small areas to reveal boarded up windows in places that were once filled with people having a great time. This was a very strange experience considering how alive this street normally is. It was reminiscent of an apocalypse.
After setting up a few more shots I decided to head home. I plan on going down a few more times throughout this shutdown to see if anything changes. This is a rare chance to see our nation’s larger cities in a completely new light and I think it should be documented through photography.
