What a fun time of year in Louisiana, the streets start clearing, the city begins decorating and the floats and beads start appearing. The Mardi Gras parade in Shreveport is this weekend and after checking out the floats and witnessing the preparation, it is clear that this city goes all out.
We snuck down to the Mardi Gras museum to take photographs of some of the floats that were either locked away or getting a fresh, new paint job. We bumped into a lovely man who works on the floats and he allowed us to take some photographs and explore. That good ol' southern hospitality shone through and he answered all of our questions and showed us around the place, explaining Mardi Gras history and what it means to him.
The theme for Shreveports Gemini Parade this year is 'Blue'. And I mean all things blue, they've got NYPD Blue, Frankie Blue Eyes, Blues Clues, Red/White & Blue etc etc. I was surrounded by beautiful colours and great opportunities for photos.
Take a look...
I was extremely impressed with all the work that goes into all of the floats. Each diamond below was hand painted and very accurately done. Just imagine these floats during the parade, music blasting, extravagent costumes worn by the city mayors and parade King & Queen. All of course tossing hundreds and hundreds of beautiful beads off into the crowd.
We headed through the city of Shreveport to explore some of the surrounding neighbourhoods.
Shreveport and Bossier City are pretty much twin cities serperated by this cool, funky looking bridge.
There is something about this photograph below that I really like. We were driving by so I couldn't get a straight clean shot, but I really enjoy the parts that I did capture. It is enough to give the viewer a feeling about the place. The rough, hand drawn text, scratched up door and overall colours used have such a Louisiana feel to them - raw, rugged with plenty of character!
Many of the surrounding neighbourhoods were very run down and obviously poor areas. All of the houses have so much charm and character but really need some TLC. Many of them looked like they were about to collapse at any moment. Of course a lot of the homes were very nice too, they varied from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.
The sun was setting so we headed back for some dinner, our new LA favourite - Blackened Alligator!
Hopefully I will be able to get some shots of the parade this weekend.
