Strange and recurring patterns of life brought me to New Orleans in 1991. Still bearing the scars of my father’s abandonment, I was now considering leaving my own marriage. What brought me here?

 Intertwined with the laughter and frenetic activity on the streets, I found this perfect place where an outsider is given a chance to experiment with rewriting their life with strangers in rituals of belonging.

 After 34 years of visiting New Orleans during this season before Ash Wednesday, I’m old enough now to understand the collage of portraits and scenes I’ve witnessed. These depictions of expressive identities reveal a temporal community of relationships. I photograph on the street in sequences of image fragments to capture the fluidity of the time and space between the curbs. These sequences of images are put together later, creating a memory of motion, gestures, and the intimacy of kinship.

The camera is my invitation to become part of the crowd. I collaborate, confront, and encourage my subjects to play with me and reveal their new selves. And in return, they trust me with their street identities. Such are these rituals of belonging.