Drum Magazine Issue 3 | Page 27

Drum: PHOTOGENIC 25 “It’s not a series of ‘hooker photos’ at all,” he tells me. When you look at the images you don’t doubt it. You certainly don’t think ‘hooker,’ you think what a beautiful woman set against these untouched 200 year homes in New Orleans. “ Regrets? No, life is too short, man. As long as I keep doing and looking and searching and recording and creating, I have no regrets, none.” And do these women, these mothers and daughters and secretaries from your ‘Bellacq project’ know that you’re about to make them immortal? I ask, finally. “Yeah, that’s the reason they come here.” Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans will be sponsoring a retrospective of Herman’s work opening in April 2005. Vince DiPersio is producing/directing a full-length documentary feature on Herman’s entire life. It will be released in 2005 with worldwide distribution. Prints and books can be purchased directly through the Herman Leonard studio. Web: www.hermanleonard.com