Big Willie Style

One show I have been eagerly anticipating is William Greiner's Fallen Paradise opening tonight at Klompching Gallery (6-8pm, 111 Front Street, suite 206, BK, NY). Greiner has been killing it for years and years, sharing with us an insider's view of New Orleans before Katrina.



Greiner participated in my The Photographs Not Taken project and here is his story. I think each artist's story expands on the images we all know so well as it provides us a personal and rarely seen look into their vision and process.

"Since Katrina hit New Orleans and my family and I fled to the relative safety of Baton Rouge further north, I have been making photographs. I have tried to make images which were an emotional response to being in a new environment, displaced from my home and city. This journey has continued for over two years, resulting in the project Baton Rouge Blues.

It is sometimes hard to know when a project should end but recently it felt like it had. I go back to New Orleans often, and still think of it as home, but it's no longer where I live. I am no longer transitioning to a new place - Baton Rouge has become quite familiar.

I often travel a road here that has an overpass which runs beside a golf practice driving range. I frequently catch glimpses of it from my car at all hours of the day and night. Shortly after realizing that the Baton Rouge Blues project was finished, I passed the driving range at dusk on a beautiful evening. The sun emitted that glowing light which doesn’t last long. On the range, a lone golfer in a bright yellow shirt was hitting balls and practicing his swing. It was a beautiful scene, striking really.

I thought about stopping and making a picture, but I was on my way to a school function for my child and I didn’t want to be late. Besides, my blues had lifted and this scene fit nothing beyond something to be recognized and enjoyed for a fleeting moment, like one good golf swing."