French Quarter Photographer — Nilo Hodge Photo-Nilo Hodge Photo Blog

My Tamron Lenses article about New Orleans

I’ve been shooting Tamron lenses for the past 3 or 4 years now and I’ve had nothing but good experiences with them. Last year, they gave me the opportunity to explain one of my long exposure photos in a How’d You Get That Shot as seen here. It was a cool experience to have such a big company, whose products I actually like and use, reach out to me about a photo I shot. They’ve since reposted a few photos of mine on instagram and a few weeks ago they reached out again. I’ve been shooting a lot of photos around New Orleans during the Covid-19 shutdown.

French Quarter Elopement During the Covid-19 Pandemic

As we all know, this Covid-19 pandemic has been a challenging time for everyone. Whether you’re an essential employee or a photographer such as myself, you’re feeling the effects of this crisis. Being a photographer in New Orleans, I definitely haven’t been immune to how this effecting business. People are having to cancel or postpone their bigger weddings and events which sends ripples through our industry. Being that I was just married a few months ago, I couldn’t imagine all the plans for our wedding having a wrench thrown into them. It has been devastating for some couples, others are choosing alternative means of expressing their love and trying to make the best of the situation presented to them. Which brings me to Shekema and Kevon’s wedding I had the pleasure of covering a little over a week ago.

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.

Matt + Val's Unique Engagement Shoot at Evil Twin Brewing NYC

Before I made the move down to New Orleans, I had the opportunity to photograph a great engagement session in NYC. I’ve known Matt and Val for a long time now and I was excited when they asked me to be their wedding photographer. Of course we had to do an engagement session since I include them with my all day wedding packages. They weren’t exactly sure where they wanted to go, but after a little back an forth they came up with the awesome idea to have it done at Evil Twin Brewing in NYC. They’re both into craft beers and they thought that Evil Twin Brewery would be perfect.

Mardi Gras, New Orleans 2020

Last week my wife and I made the move down to New Orleans, Louisiana. Being a wedding photographer, it’s going to take a little time to build up my client base in this new much larger city. So as I’m in this transition, I want to becoming more acquainted with the city and it’s people by photographing as much of it as possible. I made it down a week before Fat Tuesday aka Mardi Gras Day