For the Love of Film: March

Woohoo!  I’ve been waiting for this month’s post to share all of my images from my first family Mardi Gras trip to New Orleans this year.    My sister moved down to NOLA and I love that I can hop in the car and see her in just three hours now!    Plus I must admit… I *might* have just fallen in love with the city a tiny bit myself  (at least as a visitor!)

Our Theme this month was Ektar 100 in Daylight using any format of camera.     Our only stipulation was that it must include a person…hmmm… Mardi Gras Parade!?!??! Perfect!

I ended up ONLY taking film cameras with me to the parade.  Most of these are shot with my 35mm EOS3.    The square frames are taken with my Holga ( Since I didn’t have Ektar in this format… I used Portra 400 for those and am sharing those as well)

I hope you enjoy.   I will provide a brief commentary on some of these …

These were taken before the parade started.   We got there early… and thanks to some wonderful friends who got there EVEN EARLIER we had a prime spot!   I loved the ladderseats all lined up.   THESE ARE A MUST if you go and bring small children.  Period.

 

 

 

The streets filled up quickly once the parade got started.    A few times the parade stalled ( I was told probably because one of the floats broke down)   At one point the parade was stopped for almost an hour!!!  Luckily for us.. the rolling disco people were right in front of us.. so they just cranked up the music and we had a disco party!!!

 

 

 

 

During the break in between parades,  people just made their own fun!    Eating, Laughing, playing football in the street.   One family even started their very own line dance!

 

The whole weekend was thanks to Anita and Keith Martin… Anita is in the Crewe of Iris.    She had been trying to get us to come down as a family for a while to the parades.   But honestly… after my single college experience in Mardi Gras… I was REALLY doubtful of the “family friendly atmosphere” they were promising!     The Parades of Iris and Tucks are GREAT for kids.   They are not as busy, during the day,  and they throw TONS and I mean TONS of toys for the kids.   We made the mistake of trying to go to Endymion that night and it was just too much for the kids.

Here is a series of picks of Anita on her float.    She had a WHOLE BAG of stuff she squirreled away for the kids…  she wanted to throw us some beads too… Follow the succession.   In the last pic… I had some guy block my view… seconds later the beads landed OVER AND AROUND My head, camera and lens!   Wow… that was close!

This was followed by a “OMG … did I just hit you?!?!?! ”  Look from Anita.. which I DIDN’T get on film!   ha!

 

And finally… Thank you to my sister Shanon and her husband Gerritt for allowing us to crash at their house and enjoy a great weekend…. And for driving us around in the crazy streets of Nola… I’m still not used to the skinny streets and cars everywhere!

I hope you enjoyed my post!    I really enjoyed only taking film and having to be happy with just being in the moment and relaxing.
Please stop by our next blog in the circle!   Annie with Annie May Ogoshi Photography  has some amazing images for us I know!  Click HERE!!!