The modern incarnation of gay Carnival began in 1958 when Doug Jones and a group of his friends formed the Krewe of Yuga -KY - as a spoof of the mainstream krewes. Over the years, the Bourbon Street Awards has garnered the attention of the international media. This event evolved into the extravaganza it is today. In 1964 the owner of the Clover Grill wanted to drum up business for his diner and inaugurated a Mardi Gras costume contest. This intersection is the site of a popular feature of gay carnival in New Orleans: the Bourbon Street Awards, which is a contest featuring elaborate Carnival costumes. Ann streets - The Bourbon Street Awards and Gay Carnival Johnston spent her time in the Quarter working, drinking, smoking, and socializing with friends.īourbon and St.
She called the place “Arkady.” In 1951 Johnston bought a second home at 1438 Euterpe St., but remained living in the Quarter. Johnston renovated the place and rented out the second and third floors as well as the slave quarters, while retaining the first floor as her residence and studio/darkroom.
Shortly thereafter, she bought a home at 1132 Bourbon St. In 1940 she rented an apartment at 812 Dauphine St., where she lived five years before renting another apartment at 929 Dumaine St. Always a strong-willed, independent woman with a disdain for staid traditions and conventional morality, she found the bohemian vibe of the French Quarter appealed to her. Johnston first photographed New Orleans in 1938, and as any photographer would, she fell in love with the city. She also took a memorable photograph of famed lesbian Natalie Clifford Barney, who ran an influential literary salon in Paris for nearly 60 years. The images in your head when you think of Mark Twain or Susan B. She also documented the lives of factory workers and African-American students in the South, most notably the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Johnston then turned her lens to gardens and estates before embarking on a remarkable project to pictorially document Southern architecture. presidents, and Theodore Roosevelt named her the first official White House photographer. In addition to concentrating on female nudes, something quite extraordinary for the time, she also began photographing celebrities, politicians, and members of Washington society. Johnston quickly became one of the country’s first female photojournalists before opening her own studio to focus on portraiture. Upon returning to the States, she took up photography and blazed a trail in that (then) young field for other lesbian photographers, such as Clara Sipprell, Alice Austin, and later, Annie Leibovitz. Frances Benjamin Johnston Houseīorn in the Victorian era during the Civil War, Johnston grew up in Washington, D.C., before studying art in Paris.