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E.J. Bellocq, Photographer Of Storyville, --- [The red light district of New Orleans, early 1900s]...

Ernest James Bellocq was born into a wealthy white French Creole family in the French Quarter of New Orleans. He lived in Storyville, becoming known locally as an amateur photographer before setting himself up as a professional, making his living mostly by taking photographic records of landmarks and of ships and machinery for local companies. However, he also took personal photographs of the hidden side of local life, notably the opium dens in Chinatown and the prostitutes of Storyville. These were only known to a small number of his acquaintances. In the latter part of his life, he lived alone and acquired a reputation for eccentricity and unfriendliness. According to acquaintances from that period, he showed little interest in anything other than photography. In his early days, he had been something of a dandy, although he was less than five feet tall.

Photo of steamer launched in New Basin Canal for excursion to Lake Pontchartrain's north shore, August 19, 1908, photo by E. J. Bellocq

E.J. Bellocq photograph circa 1915

Bellocq died in 1949, and was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery #3 in New Orleans.

After his death, most of his negatives and prints were destroyed. However, the Storyville negatives were later found. After many years, they were purchased by a young photographer, Lee Friedlander. In 1970, a show of Friedlander's posthumous prints on gold tone printing out paper from Bellocq's 8" x 10" glass negatives were mounted by curator John Szarkowski at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. A selection of the photographs were also published concurrently in the book, Storyville Portraits. These photographs were immediately acclaimed for their unique poignancy and beauty. A more extensive collection of Friedlander's prints, entitled Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, was published with an introduction by Susan Sontag in 1996.

In recent times, a significant number of prints from Bellocq's own studio have come to light. They are typical professional photographs of the day, such as portraits, copy work for the Louisiana State Museum, and local views, yet few if any Storyville portraits printed by Bellocq's hand exist. A number of early posthumous prints from Bellocq's negatives by photographer Dan Leyrer have also surfaced.  The E. J. Bellocq Gallery of Photography at Louisiana Tech University is named in his honor.

The beautiful and intriguing Storyville photographs not only serve as a record of the prostitutes, but also the interiors of the businesses that housed them.