Art & Soul NOLA
Art & Soul’s owner, photographer Sara Elmore
The first bricks and mortar location for this local photographer reinforces her artistic approach: only capture images that she loves living with.
– by Angelique LaCour
Sara Elmore arrived in New Orleans in the mid-1990s from Excelsior Springs, Missouri, and worked for a number of years in the restaurant business. She moved to the Quarter after Katrina and eventually found a way to turn her love for photography and the historic neighborhood into a full-time business endeavor.
For the past sixteen years, Elmore exhibited and sold hundreds of photographs at the French Market and Frenchman Street Market. She also sold her work by consignment to other shops.
In June 2022 she opened her own Quarter storefront, Art & Soul NOLA.
Image courtesy of Art & Soul NOLA
Image courtesy of Art & Soul NOLA
Elmore mostly chooses subjects that meet her simple artistic objective—capturing images of things she likes. After living in the Quarter for years, Elmore now lives in the Marigny, which is still within walking distance to her Art & Soul. Walking allows her to make notes of things she sees and likes as potential photographic subjects.
“I’ve learned to translate images I like into what I know people are looking for,” Elmore said. “But ultimately I’m taking photographs for myself.”
Laughing, she adds that since she spends most of her time now looking at the work displayed in her shop, it’s especially important that she like it.
A collage display of black and white images printed on canvas covers one wall of the shop.
Elmore ships her work all over the country to customers who want to live with images of the New Orleans and the Quarter. Image courtesy of Art & Soul NOLA
As a good businesswoman, Elmore admits that she photographs things that tourists often ask for—like classic French Quarter hotels, restaurants, and architecture. But many of her customers are locals who look for unique photographic art for their own homes.
When asked to pick her favorite photo she was quick to answer that it is the Japanese Magnolia she discovered on Dauphine Street. She had waited until the tree was in full bloom (but before the leaves came out), and planned to shoot it in morning light. But Mother Nature didn’t cooperate, and the night before her a storm came through and knocked almost every bloom off the tree.
Patience too can be an art.
Elmore had to wait a whole year to photograph the Japanese Magnolia. But the image she captured is one of her favorites, one she considers worth the wait.
Art & Soul NOLA
Owner: Sara Elmore
830 Chartres St.
Hours: Thurs—Monday 11-6
Tues—Wednesday 12-5
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