Dear E. J. Bellocq, i want to be JUST like YOU!

once upon a time, in 1873, there was this dude named Ernest J. Bellocq who was born into a wealthy family in New Orleans. Ernest made his living by taking mostly advertisement photographs of ships and local landmarks for several companies. He loved photography and was overall an average joe who just happened to have gotten lucky by making an honest living doing something he enjoyed. As he got older he lost interest in keeping friends, lived alone, and became one of those old dudes who frequently would yell: "HEY KIDS! GET OFF MY LAWN DAMN IT!!!". Ernest Bellocq died in 1949.

Ernest, being a photography lover, took many photographs througout his life outside of his work. Most of his art was ruined after his death and will never have the chance to be admired in all it's artful glory. However, a collection of negatives, later named "Storyville Portraits" were found hidden in a drawer or a couch cushion (depending on what you read these days)

So what is so special about these Storyville Portraits? Well Ernest had a secret life of taking photographs of the hidden social life of New Orleans...aka...in his spare time he went down to the opium dens in Chinatown and got to know the prostitutes of Storyville. In 1971, another photographer, Lee Friedlander printed Ernest's photographs from glass to paper and published them for him in a book entitled "Storyville Portraits" (duh). I dont think that Ernest would have been anything but proud that his photographs FINALLY got the praise they deserved (seeing as they were taken in around 1920, if they were published then nothing good would have happened surely)

So Ernest finially gets the appreciation he deserves and goes from being known as an amature photographer to being in the very limited list of being a Master Photographer. Go Ernest!

Ernest is basically the man. He went around by day being the average joe just doing his job. He went around at night taking up the project of getting to know the underclass citezens of New Orleans. He sat down with bunches prostitute and got to know them, have conversations, treat them with respect, and offer to take their portaits like all the "highclass important people" do. He scratched out the faces of most of the women in his photographs, either because he wanted there identity to be unknown or because their faces were not needed to convey his artistic message- unfortunatly he never wrote an artist statement :(

He never slept with any of the prostitutes.


Lee Friedlander:




Storyville Portraits:




note the mask that supports the theory that E.J scratched out the faces himself to limit identification:



my favorite ^ she's drawing a butterfly if you cant tell
love you E.J
Jenn