Queen Mary

New Orleans, USA, 2nd to 3rd November 2014.

Our time in New Orleans has passed and we are now heading back to Australia by plane. The above and following images are somewhere over the skies of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona or California.

Floating above the sea of clouds….

A mysterious desert landscape that includes a solar power grid.

Another mysterious desert landscape with no solar power grid but the edge of a town or city.

That must be the top of a mountain just poking up above the cloud.

Los Angeles. Cars, freeways and suburbia.

We had six hours between flights in LA and LA airport is not the most congenial place to hang around. We had in mind to go to the La Brea Tarpits but it was too close to closing time, so we jumped into a taxi and asked him to take us somewhere. He took us to the Queen Mary, retired and converted to a hotel fixed to the coastline at Long Beach. This is inside a cafe looking out.

One of the mighty funnels.

The Captain’s cabin.

Panelled in maple and mahogoney and off-limits to everyone except the Captain’s Steward who kept it ship-shape, this area served as the Captain’s retreat from the demands of running a vast luxury liner. Even here, the Captain was on call at all times in case of an emergency.

The Captain’s Dayroom

Twice a day, barring heavy weather, the Captain entertained the elite of world travellers. Throughout the ship’s disinguished reign, cocktail parties in this room were attended by nobility, statesmen, financiers and stars of stage and cinema.

The wheel house.

Looking forward as the ship prepares to gather steam and lurch off into the city.

Radio operator’s room.

This is the switchboard of the Queen Mary’s mobile phone system.

In other words, when the ship was mobile, there would still be a phone system. This wouldn’t include the ability to call the shore (other than ringing the telegraph operator) unless the ship was trailing a very long cable.

Even if you click on the image for a larger version you won’t be able to read the labels on the board because that requires the full-sized file. The plug holes on the wooden board on the far left are for various stewards or are blank. The rows of hole on the wooden board at the left of the main console are for shore exchange or coin box (whatever that is). Then at the very top of the console there are plug holes variously marked shore lines, radio services, radio order wires, service, transfer and staff. The rest are all ordered by deck for individual cabins. Presumably only the more expensive cabins had phones. The operator had just stepped out some decades earlier and therefore was unable to provide further information.

For those unfamiliar with this system, you would call the operator who would plug your line into a specific hole according to your request. These days, this service is provided by very small people hidden inside mobile phones. They are not unionised and have very poor conditions of employment, especially at the time of termination of services.

Looking towards the bow from the “gangplank”.

Many hours later, we have landed in Sydney, taken off again and are heading for Canberra. This is still in Sydney, somewhere around Botany Bay.

Botany Bay.

Countryside not far from Canberra.

This has been the last post for South-West Canyonlands and New Orleans. There have been 35 posts with 590 images and 6,500 words for South West Canyonlands, and 34 posts with 640 images and 8,500 words for New Orleans. It has been ten months since my first post for South-West Canyonlands but I have been to and posted on Hawaii and Boolcoomatta in the meanwhile.

Next I go back to my North Atlantic trip in 2013. It’s been eleven months since I finished posting on Scotland prior to my trip to South West Canyonlands. I will pick up again with the Lofoten Islands in northern Norway and then move on to Spitsbergen, Greenland and Iceland. We will see how far I get on that before the end of September. I’ll definitely complete Lofoten and Spitsbergen. Maybe I’ll finish Greenland and not start on Iceland.

Louisiana Bayou Monochromes

Aug30

New Orleans, USA, 11th November 2014.

Monochome conversions of images on the Bayou. For colour posts with related images and more information see here and here.

New Orleans Live Music Monochromes 2

Aug29

New Orleans, USA, 3rd to 7th November 2014.

Monochome conversions of images on the street in New Orleans (part 1). Click links for colour posts with related images and more information.

Willie Lockett and the Blues Crewe.

Paul Boudreaux, Willie Lockett and the Blues Crewe.

Willie Lockett and the Blues Crewe.

Billy Gregory, Willie Lockett and the Blues Crewe.

Willie Lockett.

Nathan Wilson, Interstellar Transmissions.

Gavin Robert McGowen, Interstellar Transmissions.

Interstellar Transmissions.

William Jerome “Coda”, Interstellar Transmissions.

The Pentones.

Smoky Greenwell Band.

Big Al Carson.

Wil Frank, Ed Wills & Blues 4 Sale.

Ed Wills.

Ed Wills & Blues 4 Sale.

Vic Shepherd with More Reverb.

G String Orchestra.

Belly Dancer, G String Orchestra.

New Orleans Live Music Monochromes 1

Aug28

New Orleans, USA, 3rd to 7th November 2014.

Monochome conversions of images on the street in New Orleans (part 1). Click links for colour posts with related images and more information.

Royal St Windin’ Boys.

Young Fellaz Brass Band.

Judy Spellman (with Mem Shannon).

Mem Shannon.

Guitar player, Troy Turner Band.

Troy Turner.

Troy Turner Band.

Jeff Chaz.

Dean Zucherro (Jeff Chaz Band).

Jeff Chaz Band.

Another Day in Paradise.

Dukes of Dixieland.

Scott Obenschain, Dukes of Dixieland.

Kevin Clark, Dukes of Dixieland.

Mike Darby and the House of Cards.

New Orleans Street Monos 2

Aug27

New Orleans, USA, 8th to 11th November 2014.

Monochome conversions of images on the street in New Orleans (part 2). Click links for colour posts with related images and more information.

Halloween decorations, Bourbon St.

Marigny garage sale.

Marigny car, near Frenchman St.

Marie Laveau’s tomb (?), St Louis Cemetery No 1.

Louis Armstrong and young women with carnival masks, Congo Square.

Frenchmen St.

Saturday night crowd, Bourbon St.

Saturday night on Bourbon St.

Bourbon St, Saturday night.

Fats Domino’s piano.

Gatemouth Brown’s fiddle.

Tug and barge on the river.

Water covers.

Streetcar, probably not named Desire.

Arts district.

Ogden museum, Basquiet Exhibition.

Ogden museum.

Drain cover.

Marigny door.

1972 Cadillac Hearse in Marigny St.

New Orleans Street Monos 1

Aug25

New Orleans, USA, 3rd to 7th November 2014.

Monochome conversions of images on the street in New Orleans (part 1). Click links for colour posts with related images and more information.

Karma, Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

Coot, Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

Marigny scene.

Audobon.

French Quarter.

Mule and tourist wagon, French Quarter.

French Quarter.

Hitching post, French Quarter.

French Quarter.

The Love Potion.

Karma, Besthoff Sculpture Garden.

Garden District.

Cadillac El Dorado (1974) at Bienville St.

Louisiana Bayou IR 2

Aug23

The Bayou, near New Orleans, USA, 11th November 2014.

We contine on in infrared, after somewhat of a diversion into monochrome with the Louisiana Bayou Village post.

We drift on further into the bayou…

Another boat load of people…

This one place I remember from the narration of our guide on the boat. This where in the nineteenth century, a person single handedly cut a channel over a number of years to greatly reduce the time it took him to cart logs out of the bayou.

Louisiana Bayou Village

Aug22

The Bayou, near New Orleans, USA, 11th November 2014.

It would be easy to think of the Bayou as a wilderness populated by alligators and escaped convicts, an inscrutable maze in which all who enter become hopelessly lost. This is far from the truth.

Here are habitations deep inside the bayou. It is a monochrome post because two thirds of the underlying images were infrared and one third regular and I decided to skip colour.

Houma Indians lived in the bayou, making use of the abundant fishing and wildlife. They were historical allies of the French and many still speak a French dialect as their primary language.

Aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

From the end of the eighteenth century, people of non-Indian descent began to move into the bayou. French is still the dominant language spoken amongst locals.

Though fishing and wildlife are plentiful, mosquitos can be too so it is not necessarily a very healthy place to live.

It also can’t have been a very good place to hide out from Hurricane Katrina and there are many signs of devastation from that time.

Houses range from the modest …

… to the somewhat grand

… and many are rather the worse for wear

though all retain an undeniable charm.

A small fishing boat, I presume.

West Pearl Bridge. The two towers look just like the ones used in mines to raise and lower cages in mine shafts. Maybe that’s exactly what they are. Clearly, though, this is not a bridge like Tower Bridge in London that parts from the middle and raises to the sides; this is a case where the towers raise and lower the whole central section, as controlled by the small room in the middle.

Notice says: West Pearl Bridge {Phone number} No operator on duty; Require 4 hours advanced notice for bridge openings.

Boats and houses behind the bridge.

And finally, a house with aspirations towards becoming a house boat.

Louisiana Bayou IR 1

Aug20

The Bayou, near New Orleans, USA, 11th November 2014.

Somehow it’s fitting to photograph the Bayou in infrared. It’s somewhat surreal in any case.

In the Bayou

Aug18

The Bayou, near New Orleans, USA, 11th November 2014.

For our last day in New Orleans we organised a Bayou Tour which proved quite delightful. I was fortunate to get a place in the boat with a clear view for taking photographs. Particularly early on, we saw several small alligators.

If you look carefully (or click on the image to see it larger), you will see that there is a crane sitting in a large nest at the top of this tree.

Gliding slowly through backwaters of the bayou, which of course is part of the Mississippi delta..

Another boat coming up a channel…

My main preconceptions of the Bayou derived from Down by Law, a 1986 film in which Tom Waits and two others escape from prison into the Bayou.

The Bayou is disappearing, though. It was previously renewed by silt deposited by Mississippi floodwaters. These days, the levees channel most of that water out to the Gulf of Mexico. Consequently, the Gulf is eating away at the Bayou which is losing 65 square kilometres (25 sq. miles) a year. The Bayou is a significant wildlife habitat and fishery and it also helps protect country further inland from hurricanes.