Kimball W.

I took this photograph 20 years ago, in the French Quarter in April 2006, eight months after Katrina. Two girls in a slow moving pickup kept yelling, take our picture, take our picture. One of them got shy and turned away, so her friend pushed her face back towards my camera. Snap. The truck was gone in an instant. As far as I know, neither of them has ever seen this photograph. I wrote that the girl on the left embodies the joie de vivre New Orleanians have, that even the people hardest hit by life here carry a spirit about them. Twenty years of photographing cities later, I still believe that. Tennessee Williams said America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland. San Francisco is home. I have spent half my life photographing New York and New Orleans. There is a lot of truth in that quote, and some days, standing on a corner in the Quarter, I believe every word of it. But I am also in the middle of photographing the 100 largest cities in America, with albums published for 60 of them, and the project has ruined the quote for me a little. Detroit has a grit and a dignity all its own. So does Pittsburgh. So does Memphis, and El Paso, and a dozen other places Williams would have waved off as Cleveland. And of course Chicago has that pizza. And don't you dare try to say Lou Malnati's deep dish is not pizza. Every great city has its own charm. You just have to walk it with a camera until it shows you. So no, I will not take the Williams quote as religion. But back here in New Orleans this weekend, with the food and the music and the art and the people. I understand exactly why he said it. My 100 Largest American Cities collection: flickr.com/photos/thomashawk… Now the part I actually care about. Somewhere out there are two women who were girls in a truck in the Quarter in 2006. Were they sisters? Friends? I would love to take their portrait again, 20 years later. How awesome would it be if this found them? And Cleveland, defend yourself. Tell me why your city belongs on the list. You are one of the hundred American cities I still need to photograph.