Back in late November/early December of 2012, I attended the Wizard World New Orleans comic book/pop culture convention as an artist. It was my first time to New Orleans, and I had no idea what to expect. I had heard of all the Mardi Gras legends, Bourbon Street, the food, etc.

For one weekend, I would attend the Wizard World show with my fellow artist-roommates Ashleigh Popplewell and Vo Nguyen (no relation) by day, and then relax and soak in the New Orleans atmosphere in the evenings. Mostly we'd just walk around the city, especially Bourbon Street.

In short, I fell in love with the city! So much so that it has crossed my mind more than a few times as future candidate place to move to should I feel adventurous. The area has so much history and character. I don't care if it's one of the murderous cities of the U.S.; if I'm going to get killed, then it may as well be in New Orleans!

Vo and I went to one of the cemeteries to photograph (he has been getting more and more into photography himself); we also did a lot of street shooting during the day and night. The French colonial buildings have so much character to them, and Bourbon Street was very cool and always packed in the evening--I can only imagine how crazy it is when it's actually Mardi Gras.

Here is a selection of photos from one of the evenings walking along Bourbon Street. The atmosphere is so fun and jovial; when I walk down this street at night, all my worries are temporarily suspended. The lighting conditions, combined with my slow lens, was dark and tricky most of the time. All of these photos were shot on the OMD, and every one except 2 were shot at ISO 6400 with the Panasonic 45-200mm slow lens (often times pushed a bit in RAW):

You didn't think I'd leave New Orleans (and end this blog) without showing off a couple of photos of hot Asian models that I shot with there, would you??? :D

We shot in the hotel room I shared with Ashleigh and Vo, and conveniently they were my assistants for the shoot :)

Mai. This was actually right outside my hotel room. 1/250 second, ISO 200, f/2.8 aperture with the m.Zuiko 60mm macro lens. — **Mai.**
This was actually right outside my hotel room.
1/250 second, ISO 200, f/2.8 aperture with the m.Zuiko 60mm macro lens.

Here's a quickly crapped-out lighting diagram of the above shot (Vo assisting in the background):

And here is Mimi with her own lighting diagram:

Mimi.   1/200 second, ISO 200, f/1.7 with the Panasonic 20mm pancake lens. — **Mimi.**
1/200 second, ISO 200, f/1.7 with the Panasonic 20mm pancake lens.

You can see more of Mai and Mimi here (possibly NSFW).

I have a few dozen more New Orleans photos to process, but the ones presented here are the initial selects that I felt was sufficient enough to make a blog entry out of.

Tomorrow I will be in Southern California for San Diego Comic Con (come visit me! Table II-01 in Artists Alley!), and then afterward I'll be hanging around Los Angeles to catch up with a few friends. So my next few blog entries will most likely be about my time in that area.