Photos from Hurricane Katrina

When I hear the words, “Hurricane Katrina”, I immediately picture flooding, wreckage, and refugees. Why is this? Why do we so quickly associate images with an event? This is due to the increase of technology, namely, cameras and the media, which expose us to these events with great magnitude and speed. Susan Sontag writes in Plato’s Cave, “Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing… it is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power” (Sontag 5). She is stating that photography is so easily practiced now, leading to images all over the internet—some taken by professionals, others taken by amateurs. After Hurricane Katrina struck southeast Louisiana on August 29^th, 2005, news outlets throughout the nation covered the disaster and soon after, a slew of photos were released all over the Internet. Although I was quite young during this event, I did recall seeing many photographs online of the ruins left behind by Hurricane Katrina. This being the first large scale natural disaster I had ever witnessed, it was shocking seeing the aftermath. However, as coverage on the hurricane continued, most people, including myself, grew numb to the images of destruction. Throughout my blog posts, I will address how repetitive use of similar images lowers the shock value for the viewers. I also will include the how personal memories and the media influence our perceptions of each photograph.

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            This first picture is a satellite photograph of Hurricane Katrina as it just hits the shore. It was classified as a Category 5 hurricane, with winds up to 252 kilometers per hour. Out of all the photographs of Hurricane Katrina, this one likely has the least impact on people who see it. Satellite photographs are hard for people to relate to because nobody (except maybe astronauts) has been up in space and been able to have an aerial view of Earth. Therefore, many viewers of this photograph may view it as something intangible and subconsciously question its validity. It almost appears as a painting further lowering its credibility. Sontag explains, “While a painting or a prose description can never be other than a narrowly selective interpretation, a photograph can be treated as a narrowly selective transparency” (Sontag 3-4). Since this photograph appears like a painting, the viewer will think that it is not an accurate representation of the real hurricane and will not relate it to the other images of the disaster.

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This second photograph of New Orleans was taken September 3^rd, 2005; a few days after the hurricane had passed. It was taken from a high vantage point to show the total damage of Hurricane Katrina, like the flooded houses and the continuous smoke from fires in the city. While the photograph appears solemn, it also gives off a feeling of hope. It was strategically photographed so the rising sun would peek through the smoke and reflect in the floodwaters. The photographer obviously intended the photo to have a deeper, positive meaning. The first thing that popped in my mind when I saw this was the quote from the movie Cast Away, when the main character, Chuck Noland says, “And I know what I have to do now. I gotta keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise” (Zemeckis 2000). The sun symbolizes that new beginnings are possible. This photograph is ironically beautiful regardless of the damage pictured. It is one of the few optimistic photographs taken after Hurricane Katrina and the message it conveys doesn’t seem to diminish even with re-use.

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The third photograph I chose was one of a wall with a warning spray painted on it. Clearly, it reads, “Looters will be shot on site.” After the hurricane passed, all the newly homeless people were without water, food, and belongings. Because of the desperate times, many refugees looted grocery stores, clothing stores, and jewelry stores. In a scholarly article called “Race and Media Coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, Implications, and Future Research Questions,” the authors describe two photographs with controversial captions found from two different news sites and juxtaposed on the site snopes.com:

In one of the photos, a Black male was shown in waist-high water, carrying a carton of soft drinks and a full garbage bag. The other photo showed a White couple carrying food and drinks through similar floodwaters. Although nearly identical in composition, the photos were released with markedly different captions. The first caption—for the photo with the Black subject—began with “A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store...” The caption for the second photo read, “Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store.” (Sommers, Apfelbaum, Dukes, Toosi, Wang 42)

The article brings to light the racial discrimination that is still found in our country. Everyone is in the same condition and fighting to survive, but the media depicts white people in a better light than blacks. When a major news channel reports this news, it will give viewers a false idea of what is really going on. Once they have this idea in their mind, they will come to the same conclusion that the media outlets imprinted in their minds once they see a similar photograph. In this case, it is not the photograph itself that reduces the shock value of the situation, but the captions that go along with it.

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For my fourth photograph, I chose a close up shot of a woman begging on her knees. She appears to be a victim of Hurricane Katrina, because she is barefoot and praying desperately for something while being near a group of evacuees. This is an intensely emotional picture, forcing the viewer to focus on the woman and the woman only. A passage from Plato’s Cave relates well to this photograph, saying, “Photographing is essentially an act of non-intervention. Part of the horror of such memorable coups of contemporary photojournalism… comes from the awareness of how plausible it has become, in situations where the photographer has the choice between a photograph and a life” (Sontag 8). The photographer is occupied with taking a picture that he has no opportunity to do something to help the situation. In the photograph above, for example, the lady may be begging for food, water, clothing, or even her family, but the photographer is doing nothing to alleviate her pain. This photograph definitely loses its initial impact with continuous views. “Photographs shock insofar as they show something novel. Unfortunately, the ante keeps getting raised, partly through the very proliferation of such images of horror” (Sontag 14). This sentence describes this photograph almost perfectly, because the desperation in the lady’s face shows her helplessness, and makes the viewer want to help her, but when a viewer looks over it multiple times, he or she already know what it looks like and wants to see something “better” and new.

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The couple in this fifth photograph is struggling to keep their footing during Hurricane Katrina. A common subject of controversy in the photography world is the choice of saving someone in a difficult or near death situation versus photographing him or her instead. In the movie War Photographer (Frei 2001), James Nachtwey is the main photographer featured and he is forced to deal with the ethics of photographing war. He knows it’s a controversial business but he says he decided to become a war photographer only because he finds it important to expose the public to the tragic events all over the world so they may be inspired to do something to prevent it. Another photographer, Des Wright, mentions, “It’s a sick business. Only the most dramatic pictures are used” (Frei 2001). His quote supports the fact that the re-use of photographs reduces the shock value of them. The public becomes accustomed to the horror of an event with repeated exposure to similar photographs. At that point, only more horrific photographs will evoke strong emotions in them.

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My sixth photograph is a shot of President George W. Bush looking out of Air Force One as he flies over New Orleans after the hurricane. Although this photograph is not a picture of Hurricane Katrina or its aftermath, it is a highly controversial photograph that was released after the hurricane. Bush was criticized for not immediately going to Louisiana, landing, and showing how important the disaster was to him as a representative of the federal government. In an article by Bloomburg.com, the writers quote rapper Kanye West saying Bush “doesn’t care about black people” (Brower, Dodge 2010). Racism was a highly disputed topic during Hurricane Katrina, because there were a large amount of African American victims who, as I mentioned earlier, were portrayed in a negative light in the media as looters, as compared to white victims who were portrayed as struggling survivors. Initially, this photograph is very ambiguous, both what is going on and what facial expression Bush is making. However, Bloomberg.com describes his look as “detached and uncaring” (Brower, Dodge, 2010). Similarly to argument I made for the third photograph, the caption influences how the audience interprets the photograph. These captions preemptively sway the audience’s opinions on the object of the photo, in this case, Bush, and other photographs of the same situation.

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This final photograph is one showing the interior of a house damaged by Hurricane Katrina. It is not extremely damaged, evidenced by the intact photo on the wall and the knick-knacks still present on the mantle. I was drawn to this photograph because I have a school portrait in the same pose and background as the young girl above [In Camera Lucida, Barthes would probably say this is the punctum of the photograph (Barthes 27). Continuing with an analysis in the style of Barthes, the studium is the picture hanging on the wall, just as many households frame pictures of their kids all around their houses (Barthes 26)]. Not only does the portrait remind me of my own portrait, but also it reminds me of something my mom used to say to me when I was younger. She would tell me, “If there’s ever a fire or another reason we need to leave the house, the first things you should save are your photographs. Money, clothes, and everything else can be replaced, but not photographs.” [This further supports the fact that the school portrait is a punctum, since it “pierces” me like an arrow and reminds me of a specific event in my youth (Barthes 26)]. My mom’s wise words bring up the universal fact that photographs are like gold. Sontag proves the same point by talking about Godard’s story, Les Carabiniers (1963) in which two peasants in the army steal a suitcase they assume is filled with treasure, but turns out to be full of postcards. (Sontag 1). She explains, “To collect photographs is to collect the world… Photographs really are the experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood” (Sontag 1-2). This links well with her later statements, “Through photographs, each family constructs a portrait-chronicle of itself—a portable kit of images that bears witness to its connectedness” (Sontag 5) and “A family’s photograph album is generally about the extended family—and often, is all that remains of it” (Sontag 6). The above photograph I chose reflects all these statements well. It is fortunate for the family that they still have the picture of their daughter because it is evidence to show later generations what their ancestor looked like and it can even remind the daughter in the future of what she was like at this precarious age. As I continue to look at this photograph, I cannot help but wonder if they were able to save all their photo albums in their house. I am sure this photograph affects different viewers in different ways. Some—myself included—may still feel the same impact of the photograph no matter how many times they look at it. It can remind them of their own family photographs and how tragic it would be to lose those. Other people may feel less and less empathy for the Katrina victims with repetitive views of this photograph. Generally, I think an image can only impact a person if they can connect it with their life directly, or else the event just seems far away and foreign.

Hurricane Katrina is just one example of a disastrous event that has produced a multitude of emotion-evoking photographs. Right after these events, everyone across the nation is stunned by the images released. However, the more that people are exposed to these pictures, the less interest they have in them. In Plato’s Cave, Sontag states how most people increase their tolerance to pictures of tragedy with repeated viewings of similar ones. In some cases, a photograph with a caption will influence a person’s perception of an event or person, brainwashing him or her in a sense. Captions do not exactly lower the shock value for an image. Instead, they impose the shock value on the viewer, draining the viewer of his or her own opinion. In other cases, the initial impact of the photograph does not diminish with time because the viewer has a deeper connection with something they find in the photograph. This was apparent in the last photograph for me. Photography is a powerful tool to spread news quickly, but it is not always perceived in the way it is intended to.

Bibliography

Sontag, Susan. “Plato’s Cave.” On Photography, Macmillan, 1977. 1-19. Print.

Zemeckis, Robert, dir. Cast Away. Twentieth Century Fox, 2000. Film.

Sommers, Samuel R., Evan P. Apfelbaum, Kristin N. Dukes, Negin Toosi, and Elsie J. Wang. “Race and Media Coverage of Hurricane Katrina: Analysis, Implications, and Future Research Questions.” Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy. 6.1 (2006): 39-55. Print.

Frei, Christian, dir. War Photographer. Christian Frei Filmproductions, 2001. Film.

Browser, Kate Andersen and Catherine Dodge. Bush Says New Orleans Flyover After Katrina a `Huge Mistake'. Bloomberg L.P. 5 Nov 2010. Web < http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-05/bush-calls-new-orleans-flyover-in-wake-of-hurricane-katrina-huge-mistake-.html>

Barthes, Roland. Camera Lucida. Hill and Wang: 1980. Print.