How Am I Doin? (Mardi Gras 1938)

I recently found in a box this old daguerreotype mounted in an ink-embossed cardboard frame. As indicated from the inscription on the back, the photo was taken in 1938 in New Orleans at Mardi Gras. I scanned it, rotated the photographic image (which was horizontally "flipped"), and touched it up to improve the contrast and remove some of the scratches on the image. [Click on the image to enlarge.]

Pictured are my father, Andrew Robinson Johnson III (in the tassel-fringed bolero hat and holding the serpentine balloon) at 12 years, with parents Margery Gordon Ogden Johnson and Andrew Robinson Johnson, Jr. (both 37 years old), and sisters Margery "Tyke" Ogden Johnson (Olinde), 9 years, and Sallie Sunshine Johnson (Terry), 7 years.

In the background is a sign for Hart's Band Instruments with a saxophone logo. The exact street location is unknown.