New Orleans with the new camera

[NCB]

I decided to take advantage of my last day off last Tuesday, and take my new Nikon D40 for a spin in New Orleans. The weather all day was supposed to be beautiful, but the morning ended up being gray and dull, so many of my early pictures won't be too colorful. There were over 80,000 football fans in the city for the Sugar Bowl, so the city was completely packed with tourists. Also, I just wanted to throw in a plug and say that if anyone is considering moving up into the beautiful world of DSLR cameras, I highly recommend looking at the D40. I made the big switch from Canon to Nikon for this thing, and I absolutely love it. There are about 80 pictures in this thread, so it may take awhile to load.

And now on to the photos...

The new Harrah's Casino Hotel, Harrah's New Orleans, and the Loews Hotel

The Shops at Canal Place before the stores have opened

The Shops at Canal Place is an upscale shopping center in the bottom three floors of the Canal Place office tower. It offers stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue, Kenneth Cole, Coach, Gucci, Williams-Sonoma, and many others.

On to the Riverfront...

Jax Brewery and downtown high-rises

Jackson Square

On to the French Quarter...

[NCB]

On to Canal Street and the rest of the CBD...

110 years old, 86 years old, 20 years old

Energy Center

Poydras Street

The Superdome getting ready for the Sugar Bowl

Dominion Tower

Camp Street

68 storys, ~800 feet, construction to start in April

[NCB]

Common Street

Gravier Street

The new, 26 story, 450 room, Harrah's Casino Hotel

Some info on this building: The site that was proposed for the hotel contained multiple old buildings from the late 1800's, which were protected because of their history. So rather then scraping the idea, or finding a way to destroy all of the buildings, Harrah's designed a plan to keep and refurbish some of the original exterior's of the old buildings, which had just been sitting there rotting away for years, and incorporate them in the design of the hotel. I think it looks great!

The downtown "W"

World Trade Center

Gravier Street

One Canal Place

Sidewalk along Canal Street

Canal Street is undergoing a huge beautification project, and it's looking very good right now!

One Canal Place

On to some "aerial" views of the city...

You can see the 403 foot tall Three Lakeway Center off in Metairie, about 10 miles away

"The Crescent City" namesake

Looking over the river towards Chalmette

Crescent City Connection

Downtown density

Harrah's Casino, the largest casino in the country outside of Las Vegas

Harrah's Hotel

[NCB]

Canal Street

And finally, on back home...

That's it! Hope you guys liked the pictures! It was my first using a DSLR in an urban enviornment, so I'm pretty happy with most of 'em. I wanted to be in familiar territory for my first "photo tour" with the new camera, but look for some photos from the Garden District and other parts of Uptown, as well as Algiers Point within the next few weeks. :okay:

[tombarnes]

Thanks for the tour Nate! That must be a great camera!

[Mith242]

Some really nice shots there Nate. Glad you're enjoying the camera. Hope you're not disappointed I ended up sticking with Canon instead of making the jump to Nikon. It's hard for me to comment because there's so many. I also like how you moved your 'logo' around.

But I was curious what structure this is in front of the building. Nice composition by the way.

[NCB]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

Rod, that's a pretty large waterfall/sculpture in front of the 530 foot tall Energy Center on Poydras Street in New Orleans.

[Mith242]

Thanks for the comments, guys!

Rod, that's a pretty large waterfall/sculpture in front of the 530 foot tall Energy Center on Poydras Street in New Orleans.

[dgreco]

great pictures thanks for posting.

[Randy@Tacoma]

Why stop now? I love New Orleans (Nouvelle Orl

[Mith242]

Oh yeah something I forgot to mention. I know you're a lot further south but I'm surprised to see so much green. It's so dead and brown looking up here. Just interesting the differences between the two areas of our neighboring states.

[byrde]

Great Pics Nate.

[dimebag1980]

BRAVO, Nate! This is the ultimate New Orleans photo thread, and excellent quality from your D40.

I really love them all, but I especially like the one with the Coca-Cola truck on the side of the road that says "Saints Come Marching Home" and the one with the Fleur-de-Lis with excellent depth of field.

[richyb83]

Great job once again Nate! New Orleans is a beautiful city. A very dense urban area. So many great photo's hard to comment on them all. Your camera is on the next level. Canal Street is one of my favorite's. I like the way you got a shot of Metairie's tallest from nearly 10 miles away too.

[Inkdaub]

These are cool pics. I normally don't like pics of New Orleans and I don't know why. But these are pretty cool and I'm I'm glad I looked.

[Gusterfell]

I'll join the chorus, and say stunning pictures, all of them! The ones that especially caught my eye are the first sepia one, the first "arial" ( NO looks just like a European city there), and the last one.

Is Trump going to be a new tallest?

[NCB]

Thank you very much for the comments, everyone! They're all much appreciated.

And Gusterfell, yes, Trump New Orleans will be a new tallest for the city. The current tallest in NOLA is One Shell Square at 697 feet, and Trump will most likely be about 100 feet taller.

[Rural King]

Simply fantastic photos! Really enjoyed them.

[alon504]

Nice job, Nate. We do live in a beautiful and unique city...there's no question.

[SlidellWX]

Awesome thread. Canal St. shot is my new wallpaper.

[torgo]

Superb photos! Keep 'em comin'!

[RestedTraveler]

Those are some amazing photos, Nate! Awesome photo thread of NoLa!