A Lotta Notes

Once upon a time I photographed second lines. I retired from that after about eight or nine years of working them. Mostly, the project just ran its course. And, my legs were hurting a lot and the pleasure of walking the street was no longer a pleasure. Luckily, my legs don’t hurt these days. I fixed it without a doctor’s help.

I made this picture at a second line celebrating Deb Cotton. She was a friend of us all. She wrote about “da cultcha.” She was gut shot during the infamous Mother’s Day second line shooting about five years previous. There was a gunfight between a couple of young gangsters, who couldn’t shoot straight, none of them can. They fired randomly into the crowd trying to shoot each other.

She survived, but lived through constant pain and multiple surgeries until one day she didn’t. She passed in the early afternoon. So, we all gathered in Treme for a memorial second line. It was right around the golden hour. Anything metallic glistened and gleamed.

That’s when I made this photograph. Just about every brass band came out. As I wrote above, Deb was a friend to us all. They sort of organized themselves by instrument which is more or less like herding cats.

Obviously, the picture is heavily edited in OnOne. I used a filter that twists stuff. My intent was to show the energy of the brass instrument players. I’m not sure that it worked. I may rework it again.

That’s the story.