Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Stop and smell the roses, and while you're at it take a picture or two.

Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Postby RocketMan » Fri Jan 04, 2013 6:37 pm

Jeanne and I spent xmas down in New Orleans and stayed in the Garden District along St. Charles Street. We had several nice days with decent temps but it turned colder the day we left (Wed. after xmas) so we hit just the right few days it would seem. The timeshare we stayed in was very nice and well located. We spent a little time in the quarter but mostly just hitting the nice and sometimes off the wall eateries and wondering around along some of the more interesting streets where the real local gems were to be found.

I took some nice morning (and one pre-dawn) walk-a-bout in the area around where we were staying and got some nice shots of the homes and buildings.

So without further adue...

Night shots with the Fujifilm X10 (all shots handheld, that 2.0F lens on both cameras really paid off for this sort of shooting)

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with the Olympus TG-1 using the built-in HDR to combine a series of three shots at one f-stop over and one f-stop under and one at set f-stop (note these are just HDR, no tone-mapping used in post processing)

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some of the homes in the Garden District along St Charles Street near where we stayed in town.
These were generally bigger and more upscale than those in the area where we stayed the last time we were there.

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this one is typical of the style and size of the homes that faced onto St Charles.

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and a detail, lots of the homes had these sort of out building that were connected by a stiarway or covered walk

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an example of one of the more prevalent style of home in the city, being rather longer than wide and many built on very narrow lots. They could be one or two stories, the less affluent areas having mostly one story structures while the area we stayed in tended to be two stories. Some were single family homes such as the one below

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or duplexes such as this one

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with some being rather more narrow, i'd be interested in seeing how the interior of such a home was laid out.

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this one seems to have been divided into four units.

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some were in better shape than others

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and colors were often bold or at least not what one finds in many other cities


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some of the more upscale larger homes had some nice gardens

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and some homes that could use some work, love the brickwork on this one, talk about potential...

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Sideways and streets are generally narrow and in very poor repair in many parts of the city even the upscale areas..

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and couple more pics, these taken from the 13th floor roof-top garden of the place we stayed at right on St Charles

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some unusal mailboxes, but seemingly typical...

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Street Scenes

These were taken mostly in the French Quarter and along the river front area, which I have to say was something of a disappointment as it has changed rather a lot since our last visit 9 years ago and become much more touristy in so far as the shops are concerned. Mostly junky tourist crap. One of the things I was looking for was some sort of talisman and something identifiable as being from the area to put on the windshield of the new machine, I didn't have anything particular in mind figuring that like the others I would it when I saw it. As we wondered the shops I cam across a “genuine” voodoo string doll, which upon closer examination proved to have been made in China, yeah, sure, genuine, my eye!
We did hear some good tunes being played by a street band, but by all accounts Bourbon Street is not the place to go to hear the really good stuff and not pay an arm and a leg.

Some well worn scooter and motorcycles did present themselves at several locations as I wondered the area.

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along with some rather odd contraptions

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lots of scooters as well

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along with some neet old cars and trucks

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and some cool art

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These were in a really funky place we had breakfast in, the servers were covered in tatoos, and decked out in really odd-ball outfits, :lol: I had the green eggs and ham biscuit

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this is one I'd be interested in having, very kool stuff

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and on the floor of the joint was this painting...Watch your Step!!!

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this street performer was pretty good, fast walking without making any forward progress

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and when taking this picture the face regognition kicked in almost instantly!

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wait a minute, aren't roof lines supposed to slant Away from the center of the structure????

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oh, and saw another motorcycle, a side-car rig in fact

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I couldn't help but find some irony in this, the inscription must not have been in reference to the head stone....

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and where else can you build a trellis across/over a public walkway?

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not sure what happened here, but these gravestones where leaning up against the backs of the other stones but were not themselves in front of any grave, just some more displaced Jewish it seems

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a few doors from where we stayed at a very nice time-share in the garden district was a 24 hour gambling joint, bar, and bar food establishment, as we can see, being what it was it attracted some of the more “interesting” inhabitants

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and now a few river shots...


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and to wind up one of my favorite subjects, right up there with trees and old building/barns; old and or interesting doors...

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and finally (really this time) some panoramas, the first taken atop the building where we stayed

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and a link to the pano viewer on my site

http://roadrunes.com/photo/main.php?g2_ ... emId=72642

a river pano taken from the back of the paddle wheeler we took a little trip on

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and the link to the pano viewer for this one

http://roadrunes.com/photo/main.php?g2_ ... emId=72657

I'm really enjoying these two new cameras.

enjoy.

RM
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Re: Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Postby Unity » Sat Jan 05, 2013 1:36 pm

I'm envious, Jeff. New Orleans is one of the best of all places to visit.

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Re: Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Postby eap » Mon Jan 07, 2013 11:39 pm

Beautiful selections and photos RM!
Did some great years of grad school in NOLA just after I Jackie and got married.
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Re: Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Postby Flash! » Tue Jan 08, 2013 5:21 pm

=D> Wow, Jeff, you got some beautiful shots in New Orleans. I loved the time we spent there, especially for the great pictures--they were just everywhere!

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Re: Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Postby Bicyclist » Fri Jan 11, 2013 9:50 pm

New Orleans is an artist's delight.

Here's a pic of the Charles St Car, since you didn't include it. :D


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Re: Minit vacation, Xmas in the Big Easy

Postby stevebmw » Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:28 am

Nice shots, Jeff. N'awlins is one of my favorite cities. I had planned to be down there the same time you went, but the weather forecast deterred me from riding down at that time. I ended up doing some Florida and Alabama after Christmas instead, and I still froze. Seems like you had the timing right :D
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