The bride is no spring chicken. But her smile overshadows the lines in her face as she hikes up her dress and hoists herself into the carriage.
The black and white photograph was shot in Abbeville in 1975 by Philip Gould. It was around then that Gould had left his newspaper job in Dallas to move to south Louisiana to document life here.
In his latest exhibit, Photographs of the Human Terrain, opening at Galerie Eclaireuse this weekend, Gould displays 20 photos from throughout this career. “The human terrain is one of my favorite themes, and it gets expressed here nicely — the whole concept of man’s hand on the landscape and the grassroots that play an incredibly vital function here, in the interrelationship between what man builds and the landscape he builds it on. That just comes to the fore constantly in these photographs.”
In addition to some of his early work, Gould will also show some of his photos from the project he’s been working on for the past year. The book of images, whose working title is Becoming Acadiana, will focus on the settlement and development of the 22-parish Acadiana region. It’s scheduled to be published in fall 2010 by LSU Press. It will feature historic buildings and interiors, landscapes, iconography and cemeteries. The book “will try to get a sense of history and place without photographing people, per se.” Without people in the frame, Gould is rediscovering “the magic of the landscape,” he says. “I’m sure it was just as magical back then as it is now, even though it was a lot harder to live in.”
Photographs of the Human Terrain also includes images of a fully illuminated opera house stage in Crowley, without a soul in attendance, shot from the back rows. There’s a majestic oak, dripping in Spanish moss and filtering sunlight through its branches. And a small chapel with two windows of red and blue glass panes gives off an unworldly purple glow.
“Every time I turn around,” Gould says, “the process of photographing in Louisiana is incredibly rich. I’m always surprised by what appears. It’s an unbelievable place to photograph.”
Photographs of the Human Terrain, an exhibit by Philip Gould, opens on Saturday at Galerie Eclaireuse (535.5 Jefferson St. in Lafayette) and runs through March. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, March 14 from 5:30 to 8 p.m. For more information on Gould’s work, visit www.philipgould.com . For more information on the exhibit, visit www.galerie-eclaireuse.com or call 234-5492.
There will soon be a whole lot of shakin’ going on at Benny’s Sportshack Supplement Depot, a new concept by Opelousas native Benny Nele. Located at 2002 Johnston St., the supplement shop, smoothie bar and café, featuring hot off the press paninis and wraps, plans to open in late May.
Philip deMahy Sr., a once respected New Iberia ad exec, was sentenced May 2 to spend the next two years (he faced up to 100 years) in a state penitentiary after state and federal investigators found dozens of images depicting children engaged in lewd sexual acts on his personal computer.
This year’s Cool Town issue is all about people who are not native to South Louisiana but made a conscious decision to be here, to be among us, to participate in our culture and contribute to it.
A shelved ordinance transferring $200,000 from a northside drainage project to a south Lafayette development may not break any laws, but it stinks to high heaven.
An effort to restore a shuttered dancehall and document other vacant or razed honky-tonks could serve as a model for saving an endangered species of entertainment.
Lafayette’s gene pool has been host to a long line of eccentric characters who have blurred the lines between crazy, genius, disturbed and curiously entertaining.
The bride is no spring chicken. But her smile overshadows the lines in her face as she hikes up her dress and hoists herself into the carriage.
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