Eun Jeong Lee

My first impression of New Orleans was very friendly. Unlike New York or any other city I have been to in the USA, people here seem quite open to others and it felt like home on my first day in New Orleans. The topic I chose for my trip is tourism, which I think somehow connects to my first impression of New Orleans because I believe many tourists must have felt the same way as I did.

Related to ‘economy’, I am here to do a story on St. Vincent’s Guest House – by the way, it is the place where we are staying for our trip. It was was founded by the Daughters of Charity order of nuns in 1861 as an orphanage. As I walked around the guesthouse alone today meditating about the slaves who once built this place, it felt quite ironic that this place was meant to be built to help orphans who were the people who need love and voices – just what the slaves must have neeeded back then.
But I do feel good to be in a place where Margaret Haughery, an orphaned Irish immigrant to New Orleans, dedicated her life to help the sufferings of children. She provided most of the funding for the Daughters of Charity.

So back to the point, I chose this place because I was curious about what kind of people visit here and what kind of place St. Vincent is. According to a guest house employee, St. Vincent’s experienced a decline in business during the first half year following Katrina but people slowly came back. So I found this place very interesting as it is 148 years old and the business is still going good unlike other businesses that went down sharply after Katrina. (By the way, this place is one of the first buildings in New Orleans with an elevator).

As I feel more comfortable photographing and reporting such a quiet place like this, I wish to report well as I go on to learn to be a better photojournalist. So far, things went smoothly with friendly people willing to talk about the history of this guesthouse and its business status. And I hope for the rest of our shooting days, I show them well through my camera.