Perspectives: Things Worth Keeping, Forever
Kewon Hunter captures both the vibrant motion of NOLA and the serene beauty of its outskirts
Weeks after my interview with Kewon Hunter, I still can’t stop thinking about this one thing he said. Over the phone, the New Orleans artist was describing the memory of his first camera, a Polaroid his grandfather gave him at nine years old. Growing up, Hunter considered his grandfather, the late Charles Williams, his best friend; “I wanted to be just like him,” he said. Hunter told me he lost the film camera sometime in college. “It’s okay, you’re not meant to keep things forever,” he paused. “But you wish you could.”
You wish you could. In some sense, Hunter’s calling as a photographer reflects this aspiration: capturing, preserving, and keeping moments—memories, forever.
“I just love documenting my people, and I want to capture them in a good light. I love to see them beautiful, happy, enjoying themselves. It’s what drives me.”
His body of work is a vibrant tribute to a subject historically excluded from the canon—unbridled black joy. Urban scenes profuse with beauty, power, community, and charisma populate his feed. “I just love documenting my people, and I want to capture them in a good light,” Hunter said. “I love to see them beautiful, happy, enjoying themselves. It’s what drives me.”
One particularly New Orleans niche the twenty-nine-year-old is known for is his second-line photography. Through Hunter’s lens, trumpet-playing toddlers, careening highsteppers, and rowdy revelers all appear larger than life, emanating an exuberant energy that feels as though they might leap out of the frame at any moment. Hunter never plans these shoots in advance; it’s a right place, right time kind of deal. Sometimes, the right place happens to be facing the perilously close end of a trombone slide. One of his Instagram captions reads, “If I lose an ear, then I lose an ear.”
Hunter’s preference to shoot right in the thick of things earned him access to an event few ever see in person—the elusive procession of the Mardi Gras Indians on Mardi Gras Day, Super Sunday, and St. Joseph’s Day. The Big Chiefs’ jaw-dropping suits are intricate works of art in their own right, colorful, feathered masses set against the modern backdrop of the Chicken Mart parking lot—the age-old traditions of this secret rite taking on qualities both mystical and regal. “To have those guys trust me and trust my vision and let me be in their place is an honor,” said Hunter, whose favorite holiday is Super Sunday. “It was a beautiful scene because there was so much love and so much hustle.”
While the bulk of his work depicts old school New Orleans, Hunter has a soft spot for the city’s outlying rural communities. He’ll often spend a day driving out to explore towns along River Road, taking film photos of old cars and abandoned buildings or launching his drone up in the air to capture the surrounding murky marsh of green-brown swampland from above. Hunter’s drone work offers a stunning aerial perspective full of symmetry and contrast.
“Small towns are one of my favorite things to photograph because they remind me of home,” he said. “Home” is Prentiss, Mississippi, a small town deep in the backwoods of Jefferson Davis County. Hunter moved to the Big Easy in 2014, around the same time that he bought his first DSLR camera. “Being from a small town, you don’t appreciate it as a kid. You don’t understand the beauty of it until you’re older.”
Kewon Hunter is a photographer based in New Orleans, Louisiana. His first gallery show will take place later this year. You can find more of his work online at kewonhunter.photos or via @kewonhunter on Instagram.