Wednesday, March 28, 2012

New Orleans: A Tale Of Two Lighthouses

Sometimes, when you're hiking through the tropical jungle, you stumble upon ruins. Sometimes, those ruins are a once-vital old lighthouse, long-neglected and now surely haunted. This cute little tower, in need of some serious restoration work, is the Port Pontchartrain Light. The shot above is black and white 35mm film.

Its vines look a lot like a leafy green sash.

The windows and lens are long-gone and its ironwork is rusted, but the cupola still makes for an intriguing image, set against a perfect October sky.

From another vantage point. [Maris] and I wanted to take this lighthouse home and put it in our backyard. We didn't, though.

One more shot, before I confess...

... that the Port Pontchartrain Lighthouse sits not in the middle of some forsaken overgrown jungle, but in the middle of a field on the campus of the University of New Orleans.

That's Lake Pontchartrain on the other side of that wall. Not sure if the wall is intended to keep out the lake itself or those palm trees peeking over the top, but either way - it works!

The cupola again, from a higher vantage point. So empty. Kind of sad, really.

And here's the other New Orleans lighthouse - or, the site of New Orleans' other lighthouse. The New Canal Lighthouse was knocked off its foundation and nearly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but it was taken away to be restored. The groundbreaking for the new foundation took place a little over a month ago, but they still need more money. Click here to read about the restoration efforts - or to donate!


That's all for now. Next up, a lighthouse that watched Ryan Reynolds filming "Green Lantern" - from a distance.

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