Join internationally renowned photography scholar, artist, and curator Dr. Deborah Willis for a special program celebrating the life, work, and legacy of New Orleans photographer Harold Baquet. Willis will open the program by placing Baquet’s work within the broader history of Black photography in America and exploring the power of photography to document community, identity, and history.

Baquet spent decades documenting New Orleans, creating an extraordinary visual record of the city’s Black political, cultural, and community life. His photographs capture both pivotal public moments and the people whose everyday lives shaped the city. The Historic New Orleans Collection is proud to steward Baquet’s photographic collection, preserve his work, and make it accessible to the community.

Following Willis’s presentation, moderator Lynette Johnson will lead a panel focusing on Baquet and his photography. The panel will explore his career, his approach to documenting New Orleans, and the neighborhoods, institutions, events, and individuals that appear throughout his work.

The program will conclude with a reception and community photo identification session featuring selections from the Harold Baquet Collection. Over wine and light refreshments, guests will be invited to view photographs containing unidentified subjects and share their knowledge, memories, and stories. Together, participants can help HNOC put names to the New Orleanians that Baquet photographed and preserve more of the history captured through his lens.