In March 2008, The Art Institutes International Minnesota’s Photography program began a semi-annual course to study documentary photography in a travel and study format in New Orleans, Louisiana. The basis of this class is to instill a sense of community involvement and awareness in the students as they learn that photography and filmmaking can evoke great change. Additionally, the students continue to examine the concept of ethical practice in the field of photojournalism. In a few weeks, we will return to New Orleans as part of the program’s fourth trip. In the past, I have kept a record of thoughts and photographs on a class-specific blog here. I’ll be posting here periodically as we prepare to leave for New Orleans and regularly while we are there.

August 29th marked the fifth anniversary of the nation’s most devastating disaster and each year that we have visited we have had the opportunity to document the progress — or lack thereof. As I prepare for my third trip to the Big Easy, I looked back on the entry I wrote detailing my expectations for my first visit:

from August 21, 2008:
Pre-Katrina, my impression of New Orleans was admittedly cliché. I had traveled quite a bit throughout the western United States and spent some time on the east coast but never managed to make it to New Orleans. These were the nouns and thoughts that would come to mind when considering New Orleans:

Jazz. Jazzfest. Harry Connick Jr. Food. Seafood. Oysters/Ersters. Cajun. Mardis Gras. Beads. Beer. Debauchery. And also, as a child, we made frequent family trips to the headwaters of the Mississippi at Itasca State Park and every time we went, as I waded across the shallow water I would wonder, “If I hopped in a tube right now, how long would it would take me to float down to New Orleans.” Now, as I type this I wonder if anyone has crossed through the lock and dam at St. Anthony Falls in a flotation device like a tube. … But more on the Army Corps of Engineers and their facilities to come soon enough, I suppose.

After Katrina, there were a whole new fleet of clichés that tainted my impression of a city I still had yet to visit.

In 2006, my father, a man for whom I have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration, took it upon himself to organize his own personal volunteer trip to NOLA to assist in the rebuilding efforts. Prior to his trip, my impression of my father was that while he was [and is] by no means complacent, he wasn’t one to ruffle feathers. He had his political opinions, I’m sure – though he kept them largely to himself. In fact, prior to his trip, I’m not sure I could have guessed accurately which candidate he may have voted for in any of the previous presidential elections.

From what I can gather, there were many factors from my father’s trip that contributed to his subsequent transformation. There is one story, however, that is emblematic of the change. I was living in Boston at the time completing my master’s degree in journalism and working at a Boston-based newspaper when my father phoned from his camp in New Orleans to pitch me a story idea. The organization he was volunteering with, which was based out of a camp, was being threatened with eviction from FEMA for one reason or another. FEMA had told the director and volunteers that they needed to be out by the end of the week and anyone remaining in protest would be arrested and sent to jail. The details of the story are a bit fuzzy in my head. I think, in retrospect, my memory of it has been bogged down by the sheer volume of tomfoolery-based FEMA stories to come out of New Orleans since the storm. The punch line, of course, was what my father said next:

“So we’ve all been talking down here and we’re just gonna stay! They can arrest us if they have too…”

I believe there likely was also some undoubtedly bad-mannered language at play somewhere near the end of that dialogue – most likely instigated by one foul-mouthed daughter on the other end of the line. The conclusion being that I promised to come down and bail him out and the upshot being an obvious transformation that accompanied my father on his return to the Midwest and still seems prevalent today.

There is evidently something in this town that fosters passion, enthusiasm, fire, commitment, spirit, community and solidarity. These are now the nouns and thoughts that come to mind when I consider New Orleans. As I prepare for my first trip to The Big Easy, I hope to find when I arrive, the things that changed my father.