Jackson Square in the French Quarter of New Orleans
At the end of our 2016 Cruise to Mexico, we stopped off at New Orleans for a walk around the French Quarter as we were on our way home. I suppose we were putting off ending our vacation as long as we could. Because who wants to go back to work?
Our walk through the French Quarter took us to Jackson Square, and we took a few minutes to take in the sights there, as some threatening clouds loomed overhead. Take a look at these photos:
In the middle of Jackson Square is this statue of Andrew Jackson on his horse. General Jackson was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, and of course he later went on to be President of the United States. I don’t know what happened to the horse, however. By the way, the Battle of New Orleans was actually fought in January 1815, which means that the War of 1812 lasted much longer than just the year of 1812. These days, they might get in trouble for false advertising, but that’s another story. Anyway, Jackson Square was obviously named for the famous war hero, which explains why his statue is found in the middle of the square that bears his name. And yes, I did over-dramatize the clouds just a bit here, because I thought it looked cool.
While we were in Jackson Square, we were impressed by these old trees, with their long, twisted branches reaching almost down to the ground. We wondered just how old they were, but the statue of General Jackson wasn’t talking, so we never did find out. I am sure that the trees don’t date all the way back to the War of 1812, or even to 1815, but they have obviously been around for quite a while. It is always amazing to me just how long tree branches such as these can grow and still not need any support to hold them up. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that old things aren’t cool.
I got Laura to stop for a moment for a photo as we were wandering through the square. The tree behind her is obviously not anywhere near the age of the tree in the previous photo, but that’s okay. Every tree has to start somewhere, after all. Also, the park planners evidently planned for many, many people to come and sit in the square, as you can tell from that long, long, long, long bench along the edge of the concrete. But we didn’t spend any time sitting there, because the dark clouds kept us moving so that we could see all that we could see before the rain arrived.
The main architectural feature of Jackson Square is the St. Louis Cathedral. The first church building was built here in 1718, but most of what you see here was built in 1850. It was named after Louis IX, King of France, and not Louis Armstrong, famous citizen of New Orleans. By the way, the building to the left of the cathedral was the old city hall and also the location of the signing of the Louisiana Purchase papers. Just in case you were wondering. And yes, the fountain out front really was that green, although I have no idea why, because it was nowhere near St. Patrick’s Day. I didn’t try to drink the water, just to be safe.
Here is a slightly closer look at St. Louis Cathedral, along with an ice cream vendor on the left and a street artist on the right. And some dark clouds up above. Those clouds kept getting darker and darker, until they finally let loose with lots of rain, which you can read about in previous posts here and here, and there had already been a small amount of rain, as you can tell by the water on the ground in front of the cathedral. There was a service of some sort going on inside the cathedral at that time, but we did not try to go inside and see what it was. The clock in the photo shows that it was noon, and because we were starting to get hungry, we moved on along to finish up our tour and find some lunch.
After that, we moved on to see more of the sights of the French Quarter, but those are other photos for another time. Watch for those sometime in the future!
For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building. - 1 Corinthians 3:9
About the photos:
There really wasn’t anything special about the taking of these photos. I had the fisheye lens on the camera, as I did for most of this trip, and so I just used that for the photos that I took. They were all then processed with Photoshop and the Google Nik filters, but I suppose it goes without saying that some of them received more processing than others. Particularly the first photo, as you can guess. I went with a strong contrast black and white look there, just for something different and eye-catching. Besides, the statue was gray, the building behind it was gray, the sky was gray, so why not black and white?
Photos: Each photo is a single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Olympus OM-D E-M10
Lens: Rokinon 7.5mm f/3.5 Fisheye Lens
Date: July 22, 2016
Location: French Quarter, New Orleans, Louisiana
