Behind-the-scenes of Edward Buckles' Essence magazine covers

Axios

03-07-2025

When Essence magazine twice wanted to represent New Orleans on its covers over the past two years, it turned to Edward Buckles.
Why it matters: The New Orleans native opted to put locals in the spotlight.
Catch up quick: In 2024, Essence Fest celebrated its 30th anniversary with a " love letter" to New Orleans for its July/August magazine.
And this year, Essence offered an ode to the city's post-Katrina revival.
Buckles snapped the photos for both, using local crews and production while working with creative director Chike Ozah.
What he's saying: The models, Buckles tells Axios New Orleans, are "the people who I thought were reviving the spirit of New Orleans, who are culture bearers doing their own version of rebuilding the city post-Katrina."
Zoom in: Buckles, who grew up in Algiers, Uptown and in the 7th Ward, is a photographer and filmmaker. He made a national name for himself with his " Katrina Babies" documentary on HBO in 2022.
The project had Buckles talking with people who, like him, were young New Orleanians at the time the storm hit.
Before and since then, he's thought a lot about the cultural weight of rebuilding.
"I wanted to highlight children who are currently carrying the torch of New Orleans, which are children not even born during Hurricane Katrina," he says.
The end result is a pair of surrealistic cover photos taken at dusk, steeped in golden pinks and purples.
In one, a young ballerina leaps uncannily high into the air above an empty lot, and in the other, a young trumpet player levitates just off an empty porch. Read the cover story.
"We wanted to have the kids levitating above these places that were once underwater because that's my biggest hope for them: I want them to rise above all this. .. I want them to know their history and understand they are still very much impacted by Hurricane Katrina ... but still very much rise above all that," Buckles says.