Relics 2015: Fort Macomb

Editor of Louisiana Sportsman magazine, Andy Crawford has spent over two decades chronicling Southern culture. He initially picked up the camera to enhance his reporting, but he’s since developed a hobby. “I started about two years ago, putting my camera in the truck pretty much any time I leave the house.”

Crawford, who now carries a Nikon D300S, doesn’t often set out with a specific shot in mind. “When I have a day to kill, I get in the truck and start driving.” On trips planned and unplanned, he and his camera have ventured over a levee in Krotz Springs, half-a-mile down the railroad in Amite, through the abandoned Jazzland theme park, along row houses in Donaldsonville, around the French Quarter at 4 a.m., and into Fort Macomb (pictured right).

“I had actually, let’s say … visited Fort Macomb once before,” he laughed. The star-shaped fort may be familiar to viewers of HBO’s True Detective; a harrowing scene in the show’s first season finale was set within the fort’s walls.

Crawford encountered the fort himself while out fishing with his son at the nearby boat launch. “I saw it when we got there, and I said, ‘Garrett, I’ve got to poke around in there.’”

On his second trip, Crawford arrived at Fort Macomb as an invited guest of the state parks staff accompanied by fellow photographers. And his exploration continued.

View more of his work at andycrawford.photography.