A city street is heavily flooded, with water reaching building heights. People gather on a section of dry road in the foreground. The skyline of a city with high-rise buildings is visible in the background, partially obscured by mist.

Artist Archives

7:28AM August 30, 2005

One photographer’s look at a city waking up to disaster.

Artist Archives

7:28AM August 30, 2005

One photographer’s look at a city waking up to disaster.

2004

by Neil Alexander, photographer

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The morning after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Neil Alexander left his Tchoupitoulas Street home with a friend who had ridden out the storm with Alexander and his family, to attempt to check on the friend’s house in Lakeview. Alexander’s house, situated on the high ground near the river, had escaped major damage, but most of the rest of the city, he soon realized, had fared far worse.

They drove Alexander’s Subaru Outback onto Interstate 10, and as they passed above Tulane Avenue, they encountered the scene depicted in 7:28AM August 30, 2005, which is featured in HNOC’s new exhibition Art of the City: Postmodern to Post-Katrina, presented by The Helis Foundation. “At that axis, at the conclusion of Highway 61, you can see right into the city,” Alexander said. “The whole tableau caught my eye. I was still processing it, but as a photographer, capturing that moment was kind of instinctive.”

HNOC, gift of the artist, 2017.0253

Alexander has lived in New Orleans for more than four decades, working as an architectural photographer and documentary filmmaker. Since first arriving on a cross-country road trip and deciding to leave his native Pennsylvania behind, Alexander has spent most of his life capturing the culture of New Orleans. Aware that he was fortunate to have been able to shelter in place safely during the storm, Alexander grabbed his Canon digital camera and a 200 mm lens as he left his house that morning, because he “thought that was my mission as a filmmaker and photographer, to document the city.”

Alexander is one of dozens of contemporary artists whose work makes up Art of the City, which debuted with the April opening of HNOC’s new exhibition center. “I’m honored to be in the company of so many amazing artists,” Alexander said. “We’re all responding to the emotional quality of the city, no matter what our medium is, no matter what our technique is. Mine happens to be a camera and lens.”