Cajun Document

For six months in 1974, New Yorkers Charles H. Traub and Douglas Baz lived in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana, and photographed there and in the surrounding countryside. Their collective work encompassed many hundreds of images that depict the land, people, and life patterns of Louisiana’s Cajuns. This exhibition was selection of thirty images from that series.

After their Louisiana sojourn, each photographer went into the field of fine arts education in New York State–Traub at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and Baz at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, where he was founding director of the school’s photography program. Traub continues as chair of the Photography and Related Media Department at the School of Visual Arts. Baz is now a freelance editorial and fine art photographer headquartered in Dutchess County, New York.

 

It’s hard to tell who photographed what. Our styles melded together. It was a shared undertaking. There was no real plan–just the desire to see, experience, talk, engage, and photograph. We were outsiders to be sure, and the view is always that–of the curious onlooker. You can only know what you know and only photograph what you find intriguing. We tried to do just that: capture the land, the people, and the culture–all that seemed so curiously at odds with big city life, and even our own aspirations to the world of galleries, museums, and fancy publications.

–Charles H. Traub