Hot 8 Brass Band (via my flickr stream)
On Aug. 23, 2007, the KatrinaRitaVille Express kicked off it’s National FEMA Trailer Tour at Wally’s Jazz Cafe in Boston. The KRV Express joined forces with the Hot 8 Brass Band, which has been on its Finding Our Folk Tour. The Hot 8 are all from New Orleans and have been touring together and doing outreach to other Katrina survivors since the storm.
I was at Wally’s that night with my Nikon Coolpix 8700 (pre-d50 days). My camera battery had died, so I was standing around with others, trying to get passers by to stop and check out the the FEMA trailer that was parked out on Mass Ave, in front of the club.
Lolita Parker, Jr. was there, too. She was walking around with her D300 and D70, casually lifting one or the other with one hand and firing off those quick, careless-looking shots that shouldn’t get her the results that they do.
Lolita thrust her D70 into my hand and said “why don’t you take this inside. This 50mm is a fast lens but I couldn’t get close enough to front to use it. I bet you can.” I hadn’t shot with anything SLR-like in 8 or 9 years and was feeling very rusty and scared to handle a fancy DSLR. But in I went. I came out with a few photos that I am still quite happy with, even now, as a D50 user.
The KatrinaRitaVille Express and the Hot 8 will be back in Massachusetts for a slew of appearances, starting this Sunday. Check them out!
