Thursday, October 20, 2011

Traveling Thursdays: Vintage 1960s New Orleans Details



It's pretty cool to scan in an old vintage slide or negative; the quality is usually so much better than working from a photographic print. If the photographer had a good camera and a steady hand, the details that can be yielded from a decent high resolution scanner are really wonderful to discover. Today's post is dedicated to one of my favorite cities that I yearn to return to for a vacation. First up is the Dream Room from August 1968. You'll note that although Disneyland is faithful to the style of architecture one sees in New Orleans with its New Orleans Square tribute, you will also note that Disneyland's version is scrubbed squeaky clean. Zooming in you can see that there's a big jam session on Friday and Saturday that lasts until ?



Beignets and java at the Café du Monde; a great way to start any morning, especially if it's May 1961.



And don't forget the vintage autos!



Anyone care to sample Ma-Lou's Pralines? I wouldn't mind some crumbled over vanilla ice cream. This one is from June 1962



My inner sign-geek is telling me to get a closer look at the signage of the Green Orchid:



Panning over to the left, you can see The Patio Art Studio and some of the pieces that were created there. Anyone care to rent an apartment here from Soniat & Quinlan?



Here we have a typical view of the lacy wrought iron railings and shutters that can be found on most buildings in the French Quarter.



Zooming in we can see that we've stumbled onto the photography studio of de Sylva-Dyer, circa April 28, 1960.



See more vintage & current New Orleans photos on my New Orleans web page.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This city has a splendid sense of genteel decay.

And you are right, the signs are really the fingerprints of any era. Getting the signs right, including handbills is critical to any believable reproduction, on film, or in a park.

JG

Connie Moreno said...

That was so cool!!!

Daveland said...

Genteel decay - what a great way to describe it!

Chiana_Chat said...

Oh I'm enjoying these.

It's just plain decay. ;) Still. Neat details all over. And you're not kidding about those cars! Neat-o.

Seems to me DL's also got a bit of the peach, teal etc treatment to further aggrandize since it was built.

Google's honoring Mary Blair's 100th b-day today. :)