An infrared view of a New Orleans street gives this cemetery scene a psychedelic air.

Burials in New Orleans demand creative solutions due to the city’s high water table. In the past, New Orleanians weighed coffins with stones or even bored holes in them to keep them from floating to the surface. Today, caskets are usually placed in above-ground-vaults, like the ones pictured here.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, “Spirits of New Orleans,” October 2000, National Geographic Traveler magazine)