Michelle L Elmore Let's Go Get Em

From the start of her photographic journey in New Orleans, Elmore searched for Mardi Gras Indians, those feathered and beaded icons of the city’s African American identity, and perhaps the most mysterious and elemental of all the city’s culture bearers. “Let’s Go Get ‘Em”—the cry of battle in which Indians compete to be the prettiest, and a chant within the ritual enacted whenever they “mask”—denotes the collection of Elmore’s photographs that trace what began as pure fascination with Mardi Gras Indians and grew into lasting friendships that inspired her own artistic ideals.