Vice photographer Avery L. White went to New Orleans a week before Mardi Gras, a christian festival celebrating before and after the christian feast of Epiphany and ends the day before Ash Wednesday, the phrase Mardi Gras translates to the French word of “Fat Tuesday”. Unfortunately through years of tradition in New Orleans the festival has now lost its meaning, as its now a party central for an array of different people, of different social and economical backgrounds, sexual orientations and more. It is now a more divers way for people to express themselves. White uses a ‘shoot from the hip’ method to demonstrate the natural celebrations of what people do during Mardi Gras.
In the sets of photographs produced from Mardi Gras White uses a candid method of shooting to create the subjects to be natural and no altered images in the scene. What I like about this photographer is his used of light and capturing people who have either interesting clothes on the scene has good contrasted colour in the scene.
when analysing these photographs I have thought and taken key points in which I will apply to my photos as inspiration, the key factors I took from White’s photographs was the use of framing, the way he shot his images the depth of field wasn’t too shallow, which creates an atmosphere around the photo, so while the main focus of the image is the subject which should be clear in the image, unless its a group photograph or in loose terms of a landscape photograph. Looking at the images I like the use of not over exposing the images or making them too light, creating a grey effect which brings out the colours in each photograph. I will be attending a similar event in Porthcawl, of which the local areas will be dressing and celebrating the life of Elvis Presley, I will be using similar techniques to pay homage to White’s work over Mardi Gras, using the same fundamentals regarding lighting, use of aperture and framing of each subject.
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