Hi, my name is Christian

In 2009, I moved back to my hometown, Metairie, and soon after, New Orleans. In my first year back, I got a job as a waiter in the French Quarter. It was then that I developed a true connection to the city. At that time, New Orleans was only beginning to pull out of a long-standing lull of low commerce and rampant property abandonment caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was an intimate and emotional time. There was a lot of lingering despair and uncertainty, masked by hope. 

I remember roaming the French Quarter, Marigny, and Bywater late at night after work, often alone but not afraid, foolishly perhaps. Sometimes the scenes were eerily similar to Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire, and for some reason, I welcomed it. From time to time, I would enjoy an absinthe drip in pirate's alley, pondering these things. I felt like a child of the city, and the city was giving me life. 

I longed to capture the moments; a random streetgoer clad in full attire mounted on a unicycle, an occasional fog that rolled over the river and spilled into the streets, a solitary horse and carriage whose clanking broke the silence of a dark and desolate street in the hours before dawn. 

I am still grateful for those experiences. They charmed me into a profound love of New Orleans. That feeling came effortlessly, but describing it is not as easy. I can only recount words that I attribute to the way I viewed New Orleans (authentic, strange, flamboyant, feral, elegant, and chaotic) and the way it made me feel (unique, free, intrigued, liberated, nostalgic, and wild). New Orleans is both quaint and magnificent. If you stay here long enough, I promise there will be moments that seem surreal, yet somehow they will make you feel more alive than ever.

"I longed to capture the moments"