Search results for ""Author Michelle Elmore""
Artvoices Art Books Michelle L Elmore Let's Go Get Em
I’ll never forget that first time a saw a New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian. I was driving home while the sun was setting and there was a flash of orange feathers. My heart jumped. I didn’t take many photos that day, just three. Then, I handed my camera to some people with the Indians to take my picture with them. I was enamored from the start. Previous pictures I saw of the Indians focused on the suits blocking out the faces. With the incredible amount of work and art that went into these suits, I felt it was important to include the faces of these artists. It felt like it was no longer my art. It was an extension of what they were doing, and a way to honor what they had created. Their art is expensive and hard to do, and it isn’t done for monetary gain. I admire that, and I relate. And over time we got to know each other very well. The Indians began asking me to come out with them to take pictures. The Black Feathers had me document the images of my monograph Let's Go Get Em' on St. Joseph’s Night, when the Indians come out after sunset.
£38.69
Artvoices Art Books Michelle L Elmore Ya Heard Me
I started visiting New Orleans barbershops on Friday afternoons. Many of the subjects in my monograph “Ya Heard Me” were Gangsta’ Rap artists. I began documenting their day-to-day lifestyles in the neighborhoods they were from. In the two years leading up to Hurricane Katrina, I shot thousands of photographs of these young people. I realized the moniker “soldiers” by which they refer to themselves was not an affectation. The average life expectancy in this demographic is 25 years. They speak, live and interact with an urgency that I would imagine exists on battlefields. I have personally witnessed over 50 shootings. One day, one of my subjects was shot through the chest. The bullet passed through his body, missing both his heart and spine by fractions of an inch. Apparently, the slug was so hot that it cauterized the wound on the way through and it didn’t bleed. He went home to lie down for a few hours and was back on the street the next day.
£38.69
