George Long: Carnival Paparazzo
Mardi Gras 2011 by George Long
February 2025For close to 50 years, the popular photographer has been capturing – and been captivated by – the city’s creatives and their costumery.
– by Doug Brantley
This column is underwritten in part by Karen Hinton & Howard Glaser
George Long may have politics in his blood, but it’s Carnival that courses through his veins.
For evidence, you need only to look in his car, which he pulls up to our interview in with a fresh-from-the-sewing-machine costume laid out in the backseat, along with two heavy bound volumes of photos he’s taken over the past five decades.
“In here,” Long says, opening one, “is about 30 years’ worth of the 47 years I have photographed Carnival.”
The other is devoted to 2019’s gold-themed 50th anniversary of the Society of Saint Anne, the wildly creative walking club he is actively involved in.
The costume – a purple, duster-length coat with gold embroidery and a frilly dickey crafted by Bywater designer Monique Motil – is what he’ll wear when he joins the Phunny Phorty Phellows on their annual Carnival kick-off streetcar ride, as he has since 2006.
George Long in the iconic Napoleon House pay phone alcove, where many of his portraits of St. Anne’s Parade members have been taken. Photo by Ellis Anderson
There will be more costumes to come. Lots of them.
“The first one will be Twelfth Night,” Long says, ticking off a months-long mental checklist. “The second will probably be the Pussyfooters Blush Ball, which I have photographed for about 10 years now. Then there’s the Purple Party on Lundi Gras and, of course, Saint Anne on Mardi Gras. And the Saturday night before is the Saint Anne Ball.
St. Anne’s Ball, 2018, by George Long
Mardi Gras at Wonderland, 2020 by George Long
Mardi Gras at Wonderland, 2020 by George Long
“There’ll probably be three or four others. If I go to some of the gay balls, I’ll costume or wear a tuxedo. I’m probably better off in a tuxedo, because then I’m less distracting. I don’t want people looking at me when I’m trying to photograph them.”
Ruthie the Duck Lady, Mardi Gras 1986, by George Long
A commercial photographer who counts Disney/ABC, MTV, and Microsoft among his corporate clients, Long is also known for his portraiture (capturing with his lens everyone from Lindy Boggs and Emeril Lagasse to Dr. John and Allen Toussaint) and images focused on local street culture (such as French Quarter icon Ruthie the Duck Lady).
Born in Washington, D.C. in 1954 into a Louisiana political dynasty – he’s one of those Longs, as in Huey and Earl – Long spent his formative years in Alexandria, where his father, Gillis, served as the state’s 8th congressional district member to the House of Representatives for seven terms. Gillis Long also ran for governor twice before his death in 1985, when he was succeeded in Congress by wife Cathy.
Long would maintain his familial ties to D.C. as the official photographer for the Louisiana Congressional Delegation’s annual Washington Mardi Gras celebration from 1998 to 2002.
Later, he dipped his own toes into political waters with a 2018 bid for mayor of Abita Springs, where he’s resided for 13 years and formerly helmed the Push Mow Parade for five.
Drawn to the performing arts at an early age, Long worked at a television station while attending LSU in Alexandria. That led him to New Orleans in 1974 and UNO (“where I majored in marijuana”). After earning a degree in communications at Loyola, he started a 12-year stint as floor director at WWL-TV.
It was on a Bourbon Street balcony in 1978, setting up the station’s 6am live shot, that he experienced his first Mardi Gras.
Bourbon Street, Mardi Gras 1983 by George Long
Mardi Gras 1979 by George Long
“I saw people on the street doing things I wouldn’t consider doing,” he recalls with a laugh. “Some of it was the show-your-tits silliness, and some of it was really meaningful and important. And that’s what I went for, the sensuality of the whole experience.
“It was just this colorful panoply of light and sound and movement, which fit right in with my background in theater and music. It became a part of who I am in a substantial way.”
He has been chronicling the city’s Carnival creativity ever since.
Mardi Gras 1984 by George Long
Mardi Gras 2001 by George Long
While he’s shot his share of parades, from Rex to ’tit Rex – and is a member of what fellow photographer L.J. Goldstein dubbed the Backsteppers krewe, comprised of photogs who back-walk along their routes – it’s Long’s portraits that best capture the intricacy of his subjects’ creations and offer insight to the often-deeper significance behind them.
“They’ve made such an effort with their costumes,” he says, “and they are so profoundly unique to who they are and what they are feeling at this moment in time and place and everything, that I feel compelled to capture them.”
Radical Faeries St. Brigid Ball 2014, by George Long
Society of St. Anne Ball 2023, by George Long.
Paging through his near half-century collection of photographs is akin to a scrolling Carnival costumery flip book, with one incredible image following another.
“This is one of my all-time favorites,” Long notes, pointing to a masked man encased in bark, moss, and lichen. “A lot of times these costumes are more subtle and earthy.
Society of St. Anne Ball 2024 by George Long
“And look at this! A very effective use of pantyhose, I would say [pulled over someone’s head with the legs hanging down like pigtails]. What a simple costume and yet so profoundly effective.”
Radical Faeries St. Brigid Ball 2015, photo by George Long
There’s a long-awaited book in the works, loosely titled “Bourbon and St. Anne,” playing on both the name of the walking club and the city’s vibrant gay scene along Bourbon and St. Ann streets, which has always intrigued the self-described “hardcore heterosexual.”
“It’s about freedom,” Long explains. “It’s a core issue in my life, this time around. To truly explore and understand and appreciate freedom in as many aspects as possible.”
Mardi Gras 2005 by George Long
There are shots from Robyn Halvorsen’s and the late Stuart Auld’s lavender-hued Purple Party and Stacy Hoover’s annual Wonderland affair, the Radical Faeries’ St. Brigid Ball and the campy Satyricon Ball. But the real stunners among the photographs are those of Saint Anne members.
The 2017 Purple Party by George Long
“Saint Anne, as a group, is closer to street theater,” Long says. “There’s a sense of flair, a grandiosity. It’s about beauty in a big, bold way.
“The bottom line for me is freedom. Freedom of expression, creative freedom, and this drive to share it with the world, this burst of gold or whatever color or design it might be.”
Mardi Gras at Wonderland, 2020 by George Long
On Mardi Gras morning, the krewe gathers first in member Marcus’ Bywater backyard before meandering into the Quarter. Accompanied by the Storyville Stompers, the group carries their signature “crab nets” – hula hoops atop long poles, strung with colorful satin ribbons.
Along the way, they are joined by hundreds, if not thousands, of additional merrymakers, pouring out of nearby streets, homes, and watering holes to witness and take part in the creative spectacle.
The late Stuart Auld (center) marching in St. Anne’s 50th anniversary parade, Mardi Gras 2019. Photo by George Long
Saint Anne’s route can often change at its captains’ whims, but always culminates at the Mississippi River, where the “crab nets” are dipped into the water then flung back over the crowd, baptizing the faithful and newly converted alike. Then, with the Stompers playing a dirge, Saint Anne members and others release the ashes of lost loved ones.
“The river is a culmination of a year’s worth of pain and sorrow, and that release is very important to people,” Long notes.
Ashes of loved ones being consigned to the river by members of St. Anne’s, Mardi Gras 2019. Photo by George Long
This year that solemn tradition will include the remains of former Saint Anne captain Auld, who passed last June after 45 years with the group. Photos that Long took of Auld over the years will be featured in the procession.
New Orleans milliner and costume designer Tracy Thomson with the late Stuart Auld with St. Anne’s on Mardi Gras Day, 2017. Photo by George Long
“The visual stimulation can be overwhelming,” adds Long. “One of the nice things about going to the river each year is that it’s grounding.
“Yes, you’ve got this very feminine, watery channel passing you by, and there’s all that goes into the metaphors of that. But there’s also the groundingness of death and acknowledging the passage of time.”
At the river, Mardi Gras 2023, by George Long
What…you thought it was just a bunch of adult children playing dress-up in fancy finery?
“This is an important part of my spirituality,” says Long. “The beauty, the color, the light, the sharing that goes on.
“In Saint Anne, in particular, these people really care about each other. It’s a brotherly/sisterly kind of caring that harkens back to the hippie movement.
“This caring, creative freedom; that’s pretty powerful, magical stuff.
If I’m not actively participating in the creation of that magic, I’m capturing it with my camera. And that means the world to me.”
Society of St. Anne Ball 2024 by George Long
You’ll find more of George Long’s photography on his website, with photos of St. Anne’s categorized by years here.
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