"New Orleans" to debut tonight

Today is the 2 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. I've spent a lot of time the last several months working on a personal project focusing on the city of New Orleans. Wednesday night will be the opening of my show, and will feature nearly 60 panels--52 of which are my photographic images--telling a story of the last 2 years in New Orleans. The other 8 panels are text panels helping to move the story along.

I am very excited and very nervous, as this has been my baby for nearly 18 months and it's finally ready to share with the world--I hope. I've shared a few of the images the last couple of months here as I developed the look and feel. Everything is highly textured, pretty blurry, and at times a bit confusing--all done very much purposefully. I want the image to feel like the city feels--a bit beat up, but with tremendous beauty underneath all that muck. I hope I've pulled it off.

Anyway, if any of you are anywhere near North Mississippi Wednesday night I would love for you to stop by. Wine, cajun food and lots of good music will also be a part of the evening.

And whether you can make it or not, please keep those affected by Katrina in your prayers.

For more information you can download the press release here.

Dutch. . .is that a cool name or what?

So I've been working on a book from a photo session I did back in june, and I realized I haven't posted anything from that session. Shame on me!

These are some pages from my photo sessoin with Dutch, the son of Andy and Becky Songy. Becky and my wife Jamie have been BFF's for a looooooooooooong time. Needless to say, when Jamie and I started going out, becky was one of the first that had to give me the seal of approval before we could get to far along. Thank goodness she did!

So here is the layout. The design is for a square coffee table book. let me know if you have any comments or questions about it.

~wj

(click on the image to see it larger)