The first Mardi Gras I ever attended was Tuesday, March 6, 1973. I was a tender 19-year-old and didn’t know shit about life. Zippo.
I drove to New Orleans from West Virginia with a college friend. Between us, we had more weed and hash than any two 19-year-olds should have. Our plan was simple: first, to smoke ourselves into oblivion—which we did. Second, to sell whatever we didn’t or couldn’t smoke for cash to buy food, gas, camping fees, and alcohol—which we also did.
Ironically, we returned with more money in our pockets than when we began. But that’s a story for another chapter.
This was a couple of years before my SLR days, but I do remember bringing a Kodak Instamatic with me. I wish I could say I documented that trip, but the truth is, I don’t remember much of it. Even my hindsight of the experience is blurry, very much like our actual experience.
We were, as they say, wasted along the way.
Now, 52 years later, I return—solo, clear-headed, clear-eyed, and with a very open heart.
Mardi Gras has changed, but so have I. In 1973, I came as a wide-eyed, reckless kid with no sense of direction, just moving with the currents of youth. Now, I come as a photographer, an observer, a witness to the human experience.
Every person on this street—every bead-covered reveler, every costumed character, every worn-out soul leaning against a lamppost—has an inner narrative unfolding inside them. Wounds. Scars. Hopes. Dreams. Some wear their stories on their sleeves, while others keep them locked away. But they’re there, all the same.
The job of a portrait photographer isn’t just to take pictures. It’s to create a safe and sacred space, even if only for a moment, for someone to reveal a fraction of themselves. It happens in an instant—nothing more than eye contact, body language, and trust.
Click.
Street portraits happen fast. I don’t overly pose people. I don’t overly direct. I don’t overly control the scene. It’s all instinct and reaction. A glance, a gesture, a fleeting look of vulnerability, and then—click.
I walk these streets today, unable to stop thinking about how I got from 1973 to 2025. How that 19-year-old kid, stoned out of his mind, evolved into a man who sees the world so differently now. I’ve spent a lifetime chasing light, chasing faces, chasing moments that feel like something.
Even though I exchange only a few words—if any—with my subjects, there is an unspoken intimacy. A connection. The camera is a bridge, a tool that allows me to meet people where they are.
They share a tiny piece of themselves with me.
And in return, I share a tiny piece of myself with them.
Through my lens, I hold space and court for others.
The camera allows me to witness them. Validate them. Affirm them. Value them. See them.
And in doing so, I see myself more clearly, too.
We are connected in this chaotic, beautiful, fleeting moment of life.
Click.
Jack.
