These are just some digital shots, I also shot 2 rolls of 35mm in my LC-A+ and some instants with my Land camera–chocolate and B&W, the film was expiring so I wanted to use it–that came out BEAUTIFUL. One day I’ll get a scanner.
The weather has been GORGEOUS for the past couple of weeks, cold and mostly sunny. I’m one of those weirdos that enjoys cold weather–I find it exhilarating–and since I moved to south Louisiana I treasure cold days like rare jewels. It’s unusual to get such a long stretch so late in the winter, when we do get actual cold weather it’s usually in January. Tomorrow it’s going to be warmer and may rain; Wednesday it will be nice (to me) again; then it looks like a steady warming. So this week is probably the end of it, and before you know it, those ghastly stinging caterpillars will be swarming all over everything. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as VENOMOUS CATERPILLARS until I moved here. It seems like the farther south you go, the more poisonous and aggressive everything becomes. Maybe the late cold weather will have thinned the herd? Fingers crossed.
Saturday I spent the day in Plaquemine and the surrounding countryside. Plaquemine is the seat of Iberville Parish, but it’s only about half the population of Abbeville, Iberville is an even more rural parish than Vermilion. However, their downtown looks like it belongs to a bigger town; the Plaquemine Lock was in operation until 1961 and I assume that brought a lot of money into the town. It’s a historic site now, with a park and a museum. Anyway, I had driven through the town a couple of years ago on my way to White Castle and thought it was pretty, I’ve been meaning to get back.
I also spent some time driving along LA-405, which runs alongside the Mississippi. I love the River Road highways between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, you never know what you can find.
I re-visited the “smallest church in the world”, the Madonna Chapel in Bayou Goula. I saw it a couple years ago. They leave the key in the mailbox for visitors, you can just let yourself in.
I came across this cemetery in (I think) Point Pleasant. The oldest graves date to the 18th century.
This was on a mausoleum. I’ve always thought cherubs were creepy, especially when they’re eyeless and crusted with dead bugs.
It had some interesting monuments that were a little worse for wear.
This obviously used to be a trailer park, you can see the old foundations and the bank of mailboxes was never removed, but someone’s using the land to graze horses now.
This is the lock, the building is the old lockhouse and is now a museum. The Plaquemine Lock was designed by the same engineer who later designed the lock on the Panama Canal and was the first governor of the Canal Zone.
Plaquemine for the most part still looks fairly prosperous–the town didn’t dry up and blow away when the lock shut down or anything. But there were a few creepy old buildings on some of the main streets, and this was the creepiest. How terrified do you think the neighborhood kids are of this place?
This Wednesday Trish and I are going to Mississippi and I’m so excited! Weather for the Natchez area is a high of 59 and 0% chance of rain, so it looks like a perfect day to shoot.
A California Yankee in King Cake's Court 