Frank Relle Photography

Ed Smith's paintings, in the current issue of the Southern Review,

2011-03-10T01:26:00.001-08:00

are so good I woke up at 3am to see them again.
http://www.lsu.edu/thesouthernreview/

We rolled on the ground, we chased the chicken, we...

2011-03-09T09:13:00.001-08:00

mud danced to the fiddle, we climbed the field of haystack hills, we ate the magic gumbo of the Cajun mardi GRAS.
Thank you to all the Villians.

Happy Get Your Mardi Gras on

2011-03-08T06:21:00.001-08:00

Symphony Chorus Hosts Singers Of United Lands Friday and Saturday Night

2011-02-24T14:01:00.001-08:00

I think I'm going to try to make this concert. Sounds good.

SOUL logo

Friday February 25 - Saturday February 26. 07:30 PM - 09:00 AM

Symphony Chorus of New Orleans, the principal chorus of the L.P.O., hosts S.O.U.L. (Singers of United Lands) in a joint concert of international vocal music. S.O.U.L. is a touring group of singers from four different continents, whose mission is develop international and cultural relationships through vocal music from around the world. The 2011 S.O.U.L team features singers from Columbia, Zambia, Australia and the Mi’kmaq Nation of Canada. Students from Delgado, Lusher Charter School and Salem Lutheran will join the quartet and SCNO on stage for an evening of joyous music and song.

Price

$10.00 General admission / $5.00 students

Offbeat's story on Spaghetti and drummer Johnny Vidacovich

2011-02-24T13:14:00.001-08:00

If you have not seen Johnny Vidacovich play the drums; well, what's the matter with you?

The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Johnny Vidacovich

01 February 2011 — by Elsa Hahne

Photo by Elsa Hahne.

The poem, yes. We call it “Getting Ready Spaghetti.” The name of the poem is “Oh, it’s Fun to Play the Drums,” but the best part of playing the drums is eating spaghetti.

Oh, it’s fun to play the drums.
Getting ready, eating spaghetti.
Going to the gig, feeling like a pig.
Oh, it’s fun to play the drums.
Stomach’s full of music’s fuel
that makes the bouncing balls of
sound and time go touching all
over your skin.
Oh, it’s fun to play the drums.
Eating spaghetti, getting ready.
Going to the gig, feeling like a pig.

Now, the protein in here is great. By the time you get to work it’s like [snaps fingers]. Protein going to work, you know. Pasta get you through the gig. I try to eat a lot of pasta. I was raised by my Sicilian grandparents all my life, so I had pasta about four times a week, in different forms and variations. The whole trick to making this dish work out is to have a wife. Ha! No, the secret to this dish is good cheese. Spend money on cheese, spend the money on cheese.

If you say, ‘Johnny, we’re having pasta at my house tonight’ I’m not going to ask ‘What kind?’—I’m not going to say that because I know I’m going to like it. If it’s something I’ve never had before, then I’ll eat slow. Pasta can hold anything together. I wouldn’t put a can of tuna fish in it, though.

Italian is my first choice. When I’m out with Astral Project, we eat healthy. Tony [Dagradi]’s a vegetarian, so he’s a problem. You’ve got to make sure the food is up to his standards, with no animals in it. Tony will eat no bullshit. No eggs. No butter. Bless his heart and their hearts, because James [Singleton] is a real bitch when it comes to—can I edit some words out?—he’s very conscious about food. They’re googled up, ‘Seven miles, take a right’ and you walk into Happy Chopstick and there’s a Mexican back there. I don’t say nothing. I say, ‘Okay, brother. Just give me a pair of chopsticks and a tamale.’

My mother-in-law cooks fat-boy meals. She loves me, because I go over there with a fork in each hand. You’re watching the right guy because I love to eat and I’m skinny as a rail. That’s alright, I’m healthy.

My grandmother cooked hamburgers on Saturdays, that was traditional, every Saturday. But hey were not like anybody else’s hamburgers. Most people take hamburger meat, make a patty, fry it. My grandmother cut up a little onion, a little green bell pepper, she took an egg, she took a little Italian breadcrumbs, could have been celery in there, maybe garlic, but she’d only put a little because we were young and garlic was strong to us. Now, I can sit down with an apple, piece of cheese and eat a whole bulb of garlic. Raw!

I like coffee, I like it all kinds of different ways. After Katrina, I got the Maserati of coffee makers. My grandmother used to give us coffee when we were little kids, before we’d go to bed. Love coffee, my whole life, but not that hotel coffee. That shit will give you the shakes.

I have low blood sugar. Have to watch it. I’ve never passed out on stage, but there’s been times when I was out, passed out, and people freaking out that I’ve had a heart attack. Man, two things; I need an apple and I need a Coca-Cola. Cola get me right up; apple keep me going. Want me up right now? Give me a Coke real quick; back it up with an apple.

My grandmother’s red gravy was good. She made a great meatball sandwich: French bread, mash a meatball down on that, put some red gravy on it. I know that as long as I eat spaghetti, I won’t be afraid. It’s going to be great to die, it’s going to be great!

Getting Ready Spaghetti

1 head roasted garlic
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup basil chiffonade
1 handful cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 lb pasta, cooked al dente
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

Roast garlic at 300 degrees for 30 minutes: Cut the top off the head, exposing the cloves, and rub a few drops of olive oil on top and over the skin—garlic is ready when cloves are soft enough that you can squeeze them out. Toast pine nuts in a dry skillet until golden, stirring/shaking constantly. Heat oil in a large skillet. Add roasted garlic cloves, pine nuts, basil chiffonade (stack leaves, roll into a fat roll and cut to make long, thin strips) and tomatoes and cook until warm, about 1 minute. Toss together with pasta in a large serving bowl and serve immediately, covered with parmesan cheese.

Free Wine tasting tonight at Cork and Bottle on Orleans Avenue

2011-02-24T11:28:00.001-08:00

http://www.cbwines.com/

TONIGHT Thursday

5 to 7pm

FREE TASTING

featuring

Eric Glomski, winemaker at

Arizona Stronghold Vineyard, which was featured in the documentary Blood Into Wine. We will have signed bottles and signed copies of Blood Into Wine available for sale.

Wed, March 2nd
6:30-7:30pm

WINE SENSE

Wines of Central Italy hosted by Antonio Molesini

Cost $25pp

reservations required; limited seating... 483-6314

Wed, March 23rd
6:30-7:30pm

WINE SENSE

Wines of Southern Italy hosted by Antonio Molesini

Cost $25pp

reservations required; limited seating... 483-6314

Cork & Bottle

3700 Orleans Ave. (in American Can Co.)

483.6314

Mon: 3 pm - 7:30 pm
Tues - Sat: 10:30 am - 7:30 pm

FREE PARKING

FREE

WINE TASTINGS EVERY

THURS & FRI

5 to 7 pm

ten good ones..

2011-02-23T10:11:00.001-08:00

My friend and mentor Rick Olivier, rickolivier.com, shared these with me this morning. Thanks Rick, they are worth passing on.

These are some insightful and thought-provoking lessons from Wieden+Kennedy’s Executive Creative Director, John C Jay: 10 Lessons for young designers.
1: Be authentic. The most powerful asset you have is your individuality, what makes you unique. It’s time to stop listening to others on what you should do.
2: Work harder than anyone else and you will always benefit from the effort.
3: Get off the computer and connect with real people and culture. Life is visceral.
4: Constantly improve your craft. Make things with your hands. Innovation in thinking is not enough.
5: Travel as much as you can. It is a humbling and inspiring experience to learn just how much you don’t know.
6: Being original is still king, especially in this tech-driven, group-grope world.
7: Try not to work for stupid people or you’ll soon become one of them.
8: Instinct and intuition are all-powerful. Learn to trust them.
9: The Golden Rule actually works. Do good.
10: If all else fails, No. 2 is the greatest competitive advantage of any career.
AMEN!

Tipitinas Announces Instruments a Comin Benefit and Jazz Fest Concert Lineup

2011-02-22T11:47:00.001-08:00

The Tipitina's Foundation proudly announces its 10th Annual Instruments A Comin' Benefit Concert on Monday, May 2, 2010, at the original Tipitina's Uptown. The outdoor festival kicks off at 5 p.m. with an epic battle of marching bands, followed by hours of entertainment, food, local arts and crafts, and a silent auction.

http://www.tipitinas.com/

"Do stuff. be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration's shove or society's kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It's all about paying attention. attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager." — Susan Sont

2011-02-22T08:03:00.001-08:00

HOW TO MAKE ART

2011-02-17T11:48:00.001-08:00

It's about to be Dancing time in New Orleans

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I love the opening scene in this video. I'm nursing a sore back, but I hope to find myself dancing in the street soon.

Harry Callahan

2011-02-15T21:20:00.001-08:00

I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting.

Fredrick Starr from Introduction to Lafcadio Hearn's Inventing New Orleans

2011-02-15T21:18:00.001-08:00

Set your novel in Louisiana, especially South Louisiana, and your themes start to multiply like the outlets of the Mississippi Delta. Involuntarily you will find yourself holding forth on ethics, pleasure, mortality, and what Monty Python called The Meaning of Life.

THE SEARCH

2011-02-15T21:17:00.003-08:00

To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. Walker Percy from his book the Movie Goer.

MORE EARL PALMER PLEASE

2011-02-15T21:17:00.001-08:00

<p>Earl Palmer: 1924 – 2008 from Mochilla on Vimeo.</p>

Truth is

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Robert Penn Warren speaks the word in All the Kings Men.

"Her eyes were glittering like the eyes of a child when you give a nice surprise, and she laughed with a sudden throaty, tingling way. It is the way a woman laughs for happiness. They never laugh that way just when they are being polite or at a joke. A woman only laughs that way a few times in her life. A woman only laughs that way when something has touched her way down in the very quick of her being and the happiness just wells out as natural as breath and the first jonquils and mountain brooks. When a woman laughs that way it always does something to you. It does not matter what kind of a face she has got either. You hear that laugh and feel that you have grasped a clean and beautiful truth. You feel that way because that laugh is a revelation. It is a great impersonal sincerity. It is a spray of dewy blossom from the great central stalk of All Being, and the woman’s name and address hasn’t got a damn thing to do with it. Therefore, the laugh cannot be faked. If a woman could learn to fake it she would make Nell Gwyn and Pompadour look like a couple of Campfire Girls wearing bifocals and ground-gripper shoes with bands on their teeth. She could get all society by the ears. For any man really wants is to hear a woman laugh like that."

Robert Penn Warren from All the Kings Men

2011-02-15T21:15:00.001-08:00

“I felt that a story was over, that what had been begun a long time back had been played out, that the lemon had been squeezed dry. But if anything is certain it is that no story is ever over, for the story which we think is over is only a chapter in a story which will not be over, and it isn’t the game that is over, it is just an inning, and that game has a lot more than nine innings. When the game stops it will be called on account of darkness. But it is a long day.”

New Orleans Underground Guide

2011-02-15T21:08:00.001-08:00

Michael Patrick Welch and his team reveal the places and people you want to see in New Orleans. I took the highlighter to 80% of the book.

Even for locals the book will remind you of places you forgot and others you have been missing.

EVERYTHING'S AMAZING NOBODY'S HAPPY

2011-02-08T21:19:00.000-08:00

Louis CK is correct about everything here but I still can't wait for the Verizon iphone to make me happy on February 10th.

Can we talk to the guy who schedules recess?

2011-02-07T21:23:00.000-08:00

NINE LIVES

2009-02-05T11:06:00.000-08:00

Frank's photograph titled "Telemachus" was chosen by Random House for the cover of the published work of non-fiction, NINE LIVES, by New Yorker writer Dan Baum.

We invite you to join Frank in the celebration of this honor at the book release, reading and signing at

Octavia Books
513 Octavia St., NOLA
Tuesday, February 17
6:00pm

Red beans by Dunbar's Creole Cooking and music by Bart Ramsey and Zazou City (formerly of Vavavoom)

NINE LIVES is a defining take on the story of New Orleans in the tradition of major novelisitic nonfiction works like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Isaac’s Storm, The Executioner’s Song, and A Bright, Shining Lie. A magesterial and elegiac nonfiction narrative from a New Yorker writer about nine lives in New Orleans over forty years, bookended by two epic hurricanes. A stunning work of journalism, this is the deeply felt story of a lost American outpost and the idiosyncratic, heroic, beautiful, and tragic people who call it home.

Environmental Feature

2008-12-10T14:36:00.000-08:00

The site Environmental Graffiti featured the New Orleans Nightscapes on their site. Their overall site is impressive, you can take a look here.

A new frontier’ in New Orleans draws new residents

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By Korina Lopez, USA TODAY

Despite all its problems, New Orleans is attracting new residents. David Eisner, CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service, says a growing trend, dubbed “the brain-gain phenomenon,” is getting traction in New Orleans.

“Katrina offers a new frontier for people who care about social change,” he says. After two years of volunteering in AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps), Ashley Sloan, Greg Loushine and Jackie Smith decided to start their own non-profit group, Live St. Bernard. MORE: Some volunteers are in it for the long haul “There were so many volunteers and not enough skilled workers,” Sloan says. “So volunteers are often left standing around, waiting to be shown what to do. We wanted to start a program designed to attract and retain skilled laborers to the area.”

Community service Nathan Rothstein, executive director of NOLA YURP Initiative (New Orleans, La., Young Urban Rebuilding Professionals), moved to New Orleans after he spent his senior-year spring break volunteering in the area. Katrina “is our generation’s civil rights movement,” says Rothstein, 23. “People come from all over to make an impact, to have a part in history.” He estimates 5,000 people have settled in the area. And Richard Campanella, a geographer with Tulane University’s Center for Bioenvironmental Research, estimates that 2,000 to 3,000 working professionals have moved in.

Zack Rosenburg, a Washington, D.C., criminal defense attorney, and his wife, Liz, who worked in the non-profit sector, were so deeply affected that they started the non-profit St. Bernard Project, which helps find money, supplies and labor to assist residents in moving back into their homes. With the help of volunteers, the St. Bernard Project has rebuilt 88 homes in the past 16 months. “Many volunteers stay because they bond with and identify with residents,” he says. “It’s hard for the volunteers to leave and continue with their lives after bonding with the residents.” The couple have decided to make New Orleans their permanent home.

“New Orleans represents the great optimism of America,” Eisner says. “We’ve seen people turn their experience in long-term volunteering to inform their career paths. We’ve seen people move to change their lives of success to lives of significance.”

Gordon Parks on Fear

2008-01-20T14:47:00.000-08:00

At first I wasn’t sure that I had the talent, but I did know I had a fear of failure, and that fear compelled me to fight off anything that might abet it.
Gordon Parks

This quote by Gordon Parks hit home with me. I saw a show of his at the New Orleans Museum of Art several years ago and was amazed by the seamless quality of photography and writing. I guess fear is a good friend when he keeps you up at night reading.

Photo Shoot: Behind the Scenes

2008-01-15T14:27:00.000-08:00

I used to turn the pages of Arnold Newman’s environmental portrait books and imagine the creative collaboration between photographer and sitter that created the timeless documents. Then I worked as a photographers assistant on a few to many client controlled collaborations and I wondered what room there is for collaboration on today’s commercial shoots.

Here is a Vanity Fair video providing a behind the scenes look at an Annie Leibovitz’s photo shoot.

Speaking of Arnold Newman in 2003 I was knocking on doors in New York and ended up printing in his darkroom. Mr. Newman, let’s just say he was a particular man. He saw the words “fine art” on my resume and he said, “let me see the work and I will tell you if it is fine art.”

His studio was on the west side of Central Park. It was 1947 in there all India ink, roll fax machine, and no internet. He had an image archive floor to ceiling that most libraries couldn’t catalog. Amazing how one man could have such unwavering vision.

Well one night I stayed up too late. I drank the coffee, too much and I had the darkroom jitters. He kept coming in and checking on my prints and I couldn’t a good black for nothing. I was printing on 16×20 paper and his darkroom was cramped with New York spaciousness. I pulled on the overhead light switch with the box of paper open and boy I got a good black on about 46 sheets. No more coffee for me and no more darkroom time with my hero Mr. Newman. I think he fired me with one word, “goodbye.”

Chris Rose, The 60-Second Interview: Frank Relle

2008-01-11T14:09:00.000-08:00

Posted by The Times-Picayune January 11, 2008 5:00AM

Categories: 60-Second Interview

By Chris Rose
Columnist

Frank Relle, a West Bank boy, graduated from Tulane with degrees in cognitive science and philosophy. But then he discovered photography, or it discovered him — however that goes.

After serving time in various darkrooms in New York City, he moved back to New Orleans shortly before Hurricane Katrina to begin a curious documentation of New Orleans architecture.

He shoots long exposures at night, using high-pressure sodium, mercury vapor and hot lights. The look is singular, to say the least. His work is on display through Sunday at the Terrence Sanders Gallery, 936 Royal St., in the French Quarter. Or check him out at www.frankrelle.com.

There is a unique look to your photographs. How do you describe it to people?

I realize if people haven’t seen my work, it will be very difficult to explain. I tell them: I take pictures of houses at night. And they just kind of look at me. I tell them I go out and light the houses at night to give them a strange, eerie quality.

What does it look like?

People use all these different words to describe the light, but, to me, it’s emotive. I use the light to bring out a particular subject or story I am trying to tell or trying to capture with the image. In New Orleans, every one of these houses are just like all of us crazy people here; we’ve all got our own little story. I’m trying to relay the story of people and life in New Orleans using architectural subjects to represent that.

Frank Relle
Photo by Thom Bennett

Is your work still Katrina-related?

No. But the truth is, for me — for everybody in creative fields — Katrina was such a strong theme in our lives — it came to dominate all of our work. But I was doing this work before. New Orleans has always been tied to the weather and change and to some form of catastrophe or another — and moving through that. So, to answer your question: It’s not my focus, although my work does talk about circumstances that are occurring in 2007 as they relate to post-storm life — repopulation, tear downs, and things like that.

What do people want to see when they look at your work?

It might sound strange, but that’s just it: I just want them to see. Sometimes I feel like my job as an artist, photographer, creator, is to make people more curious about their own lives and the things going on around them. I want them to be interested.

Frank Relle’s work is on display through Sunday at the Terrence Sanders Gallery, 936 Royal St., in the French Quarter.

There are a million documentarians crawling around this town. How to you make your stuff break out?

If you stay really close to home and be honest with what you’re interested in and what you see and how you see it, then it will separate itself from everybody else’s work. I mean, there are a lot of people who take pictures of houses in New Orleans. I want to capture something that makes people wonder, makes them want to look longer, makes them want to ask questions.

How do you choose your subjects?

When I go out at night, I don’t have any plan of what I’m going to shoot. I just wait until something stops me and says: Whoa! What’s going on here?

Do the houses speak to you?

(Laughs) I hate stuff like that. No, they don’t speak to me. But I can drive up and down a street and there are certain buildings I’m not interested in and other buildings that, for some reason or another, resonate with me.

We’re using a lot of artsy-fartsy terms like resonance and emotions. Are they more than just pictures?

They’re stories, stories about the lives of the people who live in these houses. Through the collections of time and through the collection of the circumstances that affect that house — which is all about the people, the people who built it, when it was built and how it was lived in — you can convey a lot in those inhabited structures. For me, then, they’re more than just pictures. But then, I’m the guy that’s out there doing this stuff.

Could you do this work in another place?

I don’t know, but I don’t think so. I would have to know another place and care about it as much as I care about New Orleans. I’ve been around the country, a lot of different places, but New Orleans is my home. I feel like I have a background of history and understanding and connection to the place that I can relay in pictures.

You have a lot of out-of-town collectors. Why do they like your work?

People tell me my photographs capture what it feels like for them to be in New Orleans.

Columnist Chris Rose can be reached at chris.rose@timespicayune.com; or at (504)¤352-2535 or (504) 826-3309. To read past columns, visit

Martin Parr’s Reality T.V.

2008-01-11T14:08:00.000-08:00

The Independent Reports:

Musicals and opera have already been given the reality television treatment; now it is the turn of photography.
A new Channel 4 series, Picture This, takes six wannabe snappers and sets them assignments over the course of three weeks, eliminating the unsuccessful contestants until just two remain to battle it out for the prize.

Martin Parr, the acclaimed photographer best known for his colourful pictures of British seaside life, is one of the three judges on the show.

The documentary photographer became involved with Picture This because he believes that photography is not given the prominence it deserves in the UK, whereas in other European countries and in the United States it is celebrated as an important art form.