Mardi Gras Photoshoot

Last weekend, I helped my boss, Jordan Hefler, shoot another portrait session! This time the theme was ‘Golden Glam’ for anyone who wanted to come in and take some Mardi Gras or Burlesque-themed pictures for carnival season!

Being from Houma, I am well aware of the hype around Mardi Gras season, considering I had to march in a ton of parades in high school since I was in marching band. But with that being said, I’ve never really had the chance to attend any other parades since I was always marching in them! So, when I moved up to Baton Rouge for college, I had no clue what parades they had and I’ve only been to one in the three years I’ve lived here, which was the Spanish Town parade.

I will say, the parades Houma puts together are a bit more all out, at least float-wise as they’re all hand-painted and very extravagant, while the floats I saw in Baton Rouge were mainly just wagons with signs on the sides. But, one thing I’ve learned after this photoshoot is that Baton Rouge outdoes Houma in their dance krewes. I didn’t even know that dance krewes were a thing until I came to Baton Rouge! I’ve learned of a few over the past few weeks as I heard about groups such as the Babycakes, Beignyays, and the Flamingeauxs. Lots of the groups give people the opportunity to build a community and have fun together during carnival, and more specifically give people an excuse to go all out for Mardi Gras season! They love dressing up in the most extravagant outfits, and I’ve seen plenty of rhinestone-bedazzled costumes from this shoot alone than I have probably in my whole life.

So, my boss decided to hold this portrait session, as people from various dance krewes came to get some fun photos taken ahead of parade season starting!