louisiana | Eivind Senneset's Blog

These are views both plain and magnificent of alleys and courtyards, city streets and suburban wasteland, mountains and oceans and nothing in particular, hidden behind what I call curtains and you call drapes.

The Parkway Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri

We spent a month on US roads, driving 7.000 kilometres through 18 states. Before leaving Norway back in June, I was adamant that I would produce one series of photographs, besides all the other pictures I took along the way, that would span the entire journey, while at the same time adhering to a set of limitations. Having never before been to the States, I still had this almost romantic fascination for motels of the cheaper variety. For a long time I thought about doing a series of motel exteriors. But we weren’t staying in cheap motels exclusively, some hotels were, well, not exactly fancy, but they wouldn’t lend themselves to such a series very well. And one of my self-imposed limitations – decided upon before even deciding the subject matter – was that I would be photographing all instances of whatever I finally chose, i.e. the façade of every place where we spent the night, in case I went for that idea. So I didn’t.

Hotel 91, New York, New York

Instead I started thinking about doing it the other way around, photographing from the inside and out, shooting out the windows of whichever place we were staying at. But shooting through the windows didn’t work consistently either, for a variety of reasons. And going outside to photograph basically the same view meant losing the window frame as a frame of reference. Not to mention the trouble I’d have when the room was on the eighth floor. So I elected to stay inside. And closed the curtains.

Knights Inn, Niagara, Ontario

Throughout the journey I would thus shoot the curtain of every room we stayed the night in, from shitty Super8 motels and cheap Howard Johnsons to upmarket hotels in Chicago and charming B & Bs in Louisiana. So much did I obsess with the damn curtains that we at one point accidentally tried to check into a curtain store in Boone, NC.

Well, here are the curtains. What’s outside is pretty much left to your imagination.

Super8, Sarnia, Ontario

Howard Johnson, Battle Creek, Michigan

The Tremont, Chicago, Illinois

Hampton Inn, Memphis, Tennessee

Super8, North Jackson, Mississippi

Old Town Inn, New Orleans, Louisiana

Econo Lodge, Tallahassee, Florida

Days Inn, Chattanooga, Tennessee

Smoky Mountain Inn & Suites, Cherokee, North Carolina

Downtown Inn & Suites, Asheville, North Carolina

Fairfield Inn, Boone, North Carolina

Travelodge Bay Beach, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Capitol Skyline Hotel, Washington DC

Courtyard Marriott, New Haven, Connecticut

Fairfield Inn & Suites, New York, New York

Suggested soundtrack: Low – The Curtain Hits The Cast. And remember: a curtain is just a superhero cape that has yet to fulfill its potential.

This is the tenth and final chapter of the American blog posts. Links to the other installments below.

America part nine: DC, Then Dave
America part eight: There Died A Myriad
America part seven point five: Beach And Moan
America part seven: Mountains (woo-hoo!)
America part six: The Place Where They Cried*
America part five: The Heroes of Gator-Aid
America part four: Some People. And Chicago
America part three: A Tale Of Three Cities
America part two: Viva Las Canada
America part one: New York Fact Sheet

Hand feeding alligators with marshmallows is a desperate measure to save a species on the brink of extinction due to abrupt changes in the food chain.

Is that a wild alligator in the middle of the swamp? Yes. Is he swimming around with a marshmallow on top of its head? Also yes

Is that a wild alligator in the middle of the swamp? Yes. Is it swimming around with a marshmallow on top of its head? Also yes

Long-term ecological complications from hurricane Katrina have all but decimated many important species of plants in the Louisiana marshlands, severely disrupting the natural food chain. Among the species as good as extinct is the wild marshmallow, the main source of nutrition for the Louisiana alligators. In a desperate measure to save the species, swamp rangers set out to hand feed starving gators with rations of aid marshmallows. As there are an estimated two million gators in Louisiana, this is an arduous and labour-intensive job, demanding large numbers of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of bags of marshmallows every week.

Swampscape 1. Not a marshmallow tree in sight

Alligator 2. Misquoting Nixon: I am not a croc

Swampscape 2. Would you look at that complete absence of marshmallow trees

Swampscape 2. Would you look at that complete lack of marshmallow trees?

Why not use airdrop you might ask? Well, that would leave most of the marshmallows floating in the swamp waters, like they were windfall. Alligators are accustomed to jumping out of the water and nipping wild marshmallows straight from the branches of the marshmallow tree. A proud gator simply won’t touch soggy marshmallows. Thus the need for human hands tempting the gators like the marshmallows were fresh off the branches, allowing the animals to act on their hunting instincts.

Alligator 3. Of course there are dangers associated with hand feeding alligators. If you forget to remove your wristwatch, they can easily snag a fang, in worst case breaking the tooth off completely

Swampscape 3. Wait – is that a marshmallow tree over there on the right? Could it really be? Nope. My bad

Swampscape 4. Marshmallow tree. Dead, sadly

While visiting Louisiana my girlfriend and I felt the obligation to do our part, and joined a party of first time volunteers on a barge set out to distribute aid rations in the Barataria area south of New Orleans. We are proud to say that at least a dozen gators won’t be starving for marshmallows before the weekend at the very least.

Swampscape 5. Not a single marshmallow tree. Really, this is an ecological disaster

Swampscape 6. I mean – have you ever seen a swamp south of the Arctic Circle with this few marshmallow trees?

Alligator 4. My girlfriend having just completed the course “Caring for your alligator.” Lesson 101: The belly rub

Disclaimer: Let’s just quote the great pirate W. Shakespeare: “Do not trusteh all that thou readest on the Interneth.” Alligators are not a threatened species, and I just read that feeding them actually is against Louisiana law. Huh. Seems that our tour guide was breaking the law. Not too surprising really. After reading this article on disaster tourism I must admit a certain distaste for some of the practices of the New Orleans tour industry.

This is America part five. Read part four here, part three here, part two here, part one here.

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