Perspectives: Philip Gould

Philip Gould documents Louisiana's connective tissues in his "Bridging the Mississippi" series

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Visual & Performing Arts

Without any prior knowledge of Louisiana culture beyond Dr. John’s music and “maybe Mardi Gras,” in 1974 Massachusetts-born, Bay Area-raised-and-educated twenty-two-year-old photojournalism graduate Philip Gould accepted a position as a photographer for The Daily Iberian from across the country, and suddenly found himself in the heart of Acadiana.

“It’s like they latch onto each other, and then they move around the dance floor in lock step. And I just remember seeing this scene of all these people doing this, and their heads were bobbing, and it’s like the tops of their heads created this sort of gentle ocean wave,” Gould said. “That’s an image that has always stuck with me.”

His first Saturday night in New Iberia, a reporter Gould worked with took him to an old-time Cajun dance hall called the Blue Moon Club. There, he received his first taste of the Cajun joie de vivre that continues to inspire his work decades later. “I had never seen anything like that in my life.” Gould marveled at the memory of the accordion player, Aldus Mouton, speaking between songs in rapid-fire Cajun French, and even more—of all the couples dancing a one-step waltz.  “It’s like they latch onto each other, and then they move around the dance floor in lock step. And I just remember seeing this scene of all these people doing this, and their heads were bobbing, and it’s like the tops of their heads created this sort of gentle ocean wave,” Gould said. “That’s an image that has always stuck with me.”

“Louisiana is an incredibly generous photographic subject. It just keeps on giving,” Gould said reverently. “And I’m sure other states are as well, but I really feel it here. Every time I turn around, I see things differently.”

Gould describes his personal discovery of the world of Louisiana as something he “sort of stumbled into” by taking that job at the New Iberia newspaper. He arrived in Acadiana when traditional Cajun life was still “very much as it had been,” and witnessed firsthand its evolution during the ensuing decades. He, too, evolved during that time from a young West Coast transplant working his first full-time photography job to one of the most prolific and prominent documentarians of life in Louisiana. Keen to discover and chronicle places and cultures, he has yet to lack material in his marshy, adoptive home state, even all these years later. “Louisiana is an incredibly generous photographic subject. It just keeps on giving,” Gould said reverently. “And I’m sure other states are as well, but I really feel it here. Every time I turn around, I see things differently.”

[Read the event write-up for Gould's exhibition at LeMieux Galleries here.]

One of the features that has captured Gould’s interest—and in turn, his lens—is the very landmark that most powerfully connects Louisiana to the rest of the country: the Mississippi River, and more specifically, its many diverse bridges. This fascination with the “Father of Waters” (which is the English translation of the Native American phrase “misi-ziibi”) and the engineering feats that allow us to cross it manifested in Gould’s Bridging the Mississippi project and accompanying book in partnership with writer Margot Hasha, published in April 2020 by LSU Press. In the collection of photographs spanning the years 2016 to 2018, Gould documents bridges from the Crescent City Connection in New Orleans all the way up to the river’s headwaters in Lake Itasca, Minnesota. “The river is this 2,300-mile constant that is always there,” Gould said, also noting the river’s variance, from our more narrow spans in Louisiana to the channels and lakes that spread to seventy-five miles wide in places further north.

Alongside seventy-five of the Mississippi’s over one-hundred-thirty overpasses,  Gould also captures moments of connection between the river and those who interact with it. “The humanity was the most enjoyable part, because I never saw these photographs of these folks coming,” Gould explained. “I mean, you can’t plan on this sort of thing. This just happens in front of you and you just have to be there with your camera, and some sort of sense of ready to photograph it.” Gould’s readiness and fortune of being in the “right place, right time” (to modify the iconic Dr. John lyric) resulted in photographs featuring everyone from recreational kayakers, to wedding partiers, to boat captains, to those who seek the water as a place of prayer.

[Read Publisher James Fox-Smith's "noteworthy" story anticipating the release of Gould's Bridging the Mississippi here.]

"He said ‘I align myself with the bridges to align myself to God.’ And I’m thinking, ‘You can’t argue with that. That’s the most wonderful sense of serendipity.’” 

“I ran into this fellow down in New Orleans when I was photographing the front of the Crescent City Connection … and he’s got his hands up in prayer. I was totally intrigued by that; I never saw that coming. He said ‘I align myself with the bridges to align myself to God.’ And I’m thinking, ‘You can’t argue with that. That’s the most wonderful sense of serendipity.’” 

Art Rocks! will run an accompanying piece on Philip Gould and Margot Hasha’s book on January 15 and 16. See Philip Gould’s Bridging the Mississippi exhibition currently at LeMieux Gallery in New Orleans until December 23, 2020, The Hilliard Museum in Lafayette until April 3, 2021, and at philipgould.com. Or, purchase the book as a holiday gift for a loved one or yourself from LSU Press.