Printable View
I have rebuilt my Katrina site, added about 30 images to a total of 54, and reprocessed the old ones:
biotech.law.lsu.edu/katrina/HTML/index.htm
Comments are welcome. I still have some more keepers to process through Photoshop. I think I have a total of 350 sheets, maybe 175 unique images. I may add a few more, but most of the areas are getting cleaned up, so there is not a lot left to shoot.
Some more strong ones in the new additions. From another post it sounded like you were going to self publish a book, which I think is a good move, though there are pitfalls. The biggest one being marketing. I have given numerous talks at conferences on this very topic. Email me if you want to discuss this further. I think there is plenty of good material there. But I still recommend working with a good editor, a more objective eye can help define a final cut and ordering sometimes than we can ourselves. We oftentimes get attached to images because we were "there", but sometimes these images don't really convey our intent. I can recommend a couple of editors also.
Thanks Kirk! I am still in phase one - getting all of the major images processed and getting them on the WWW as part of the Katrina record. Once that is done, it is editing time. I am already doing that with the prints, sorting out the images that have journalist value from those that can stand independtly as art.
As for a book - I am just messing around with test shots to see if I can get decent images out of the on demand book printers. If so, then I will get more serious. I will send you a note off line.
Excellent work, Ed. I'll look forward to the interview on CNN (with your 4x5 on the counter in front of you) when you get the project finished, and hopefully published.
many of the pictures strike me as strong, but i have some misgivings about it as a body of work, the way it's currently edited. my sense is that all of the pictures are about the same thing: dramatically illustrating destruction. this is the formula used in a lot of journalism, and it can unfortunately have the effect of numbing the viewer. especially in a case like this, where just about everyone has already seen dozens of news pictures of the same subject, equally bent on dramatizing destruction.
when you have this many pictures to work with, it's an opportunity to create a broader, more three dimensional sense of the experience of being there--whatever that was for you. a few of the pictures struck me as succesful in this regard. this one, for example:
http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/katrina/HTML/4x5%20-%20000388%20-%20ptr.htm?size=1&exif=
It's still about destruction, but it shows its subject with a different voice--one that for me invites reflection rather than just jaw-dropping. And it's a picture that points beyond itself ... it's not just an illustration.
I'm betting that since you have 350 sheets of film, there's a lot you could do to strengthen the work just through editing. If you are planning on proposing it as a book project, you might have the opportunity to work with an excellent editor. Have you considered the Center for American Places?
Well, I've put my two cents in on this project too many times as it is, but I still think the process needs to work itself out for Ed. There's more going on with these photographs than just showing or reporting destruction.