Above New Orleans - by Marco Rasi & Richard Campanella (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Bird's eye views of New Orleans appeared first in the nineteenth century from the vantage point of hot-air balloons. In the twentieth-century, photographers in bi-planes, commercial aircraft, and helicopters trained their lenses on the Crescent City. While these methods of capturing the city from above offer fascinating glimpses of its neighborhoods, buildings, gardens, streets, and people, the images are broadly focused and necessarily taken from afar. Drone technology shattered those longtime limits, creating a whole new way of seeing New Orleans from overhead. In "Above New Orleans," geographer Richard Campanella deftly describes the astounding images of the city captured by drone-mounted cameras by professional drone pilot Marco Rasi. Organized without sections, images in the volume are free-flowing, starting in the urban core and, bird-like, spiraling outwardly to the metropolitan periphery. Opening scenes focus on the original city of New Orleans, today's French Quarter, after which we proceed downriver to the neighborhoods of the Faubourg Marigny, Bywater, the Upper Ninth Ward, Faubourg Tremâe and St. Roch, and the Lower Ninth Ward. We then soar back to downtown and explore the Central Business District, Lower Garden District, Central City, and Mid-City to City Park, the Esplanade Ridge, and the cemeteries along the Metairie Ridge. From there we head into the Garden District and fly uptown, along St. Charles Avenue to the Audubon/ University area through Carrollton, then across the river to the West Bank communities of Algiers, Greta, and Westwego, down to Lafitte at one point. Marco's drone then loops back along the Lake Pontchartrain shore and flies to eastern New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, all the way out to the Rigolets, and returns just as far west, to Metairie and Kenner in Jefferson Parish and the Bonnet Carrâe Spillway in St. Charles Parish"--

Book Synopsis

The first full-length book of drone photography of the Crescent City, Above New Orleans offers readers perspectives never before captured by a camera. Overhead scenes cover the entire metropolis, from the French Quarter to Uptown, from the Mississippi River to Lake Pontchartrain, from Westwego to New Orleans East, and from Gentilly to Gretna. A detailed description accompanies each image, providing insight into the history, geography, and architecture of this dazzling municipality.

As this volume demonstrates, the vantage points afforded by the drone-mounted camera reveal fascinating views otherwise unobtainable in the often compact environment of New Orleans. "To me a roofscape is the tout ensemble of urban elements," writes Richard Campanella in the book's preface, "particularly in dense neighborhoods, visible from a perch that is high enough to be synoptical, yet low enough to be intimate. Roofscapes are the intermediary between the more familiar concepts of streetscapes and landscapes; they are the oblique, three-dimensional renderings of cityscapes."

Capturing these views of New Orleans required the specialized equipment and expertise of retired Italian engineer Marco Rasi, who has mastered the new technology of drone photography in his adopted hometown. His adept piloting and keen eye made for, in Rasi's words, "the perfect platform to capture those rooftop perspectives I had always savored, as no aircraft or helicopter could ever do."

Above New Orleans: Roofscapes of the Crescent City beautifully documents the aesthetic wonder of the city's singular urban landscape.

Review Quotes

Marco Rasi is a dazzling photographer, and Richard Campanella is a creative geographer with a profound feel for New Orleans. Together they have produced a delightful bird's-eye look at our city.-- "Walter Isaacson, New Orleans native and "New York Times" bestselling author"

The images that sweep across these pages offer an ethereal view of New Orleans while the accompanying text insightfully encapsulates nuances of the region.-- "Jason Berry, author of "City of a Million Dreams: A History of New Orleans at Year 300""

About the Author

Marco Rasi earned a PhD in civil engineering from the California Institute of Technology. He is a certified commercial drone pilot and expert in drone-mounted cameras.