Visiting disaster sites

[darr]

I live in Homestead, Florida and our power, water and telephone has finally been restored. It was out for only six days. We still have trees and telephone poles down and standing water, but we are VERY LUCKY compared to our neighbors in the area and to the east. My advice to anyone wanting to come here or to New Orleans, etc. to photograph the disaster caused by Katrina is to "Stay Away!" Most people I see are tired, upset and some are very angry. Not a place I would venture into if I did not live here. We have a considerable amount of damage to our property, but we are not sick or hurt; we are very thankful!!

[Calamity Jane]

I will echo the advice STAY AWAY!

I have been in disaster areas, helping with cleanup, sandbagging, etc., and I can tell you that a person walking around with a camera and not contibuting to the immediate relief will be VERY unwelcome! Open hostility would be VERY likely.

Then there is the issue of the "authorities" - they have their hands full and do not need another body to shepherd around. With the looting that has happened, just walking around with a camera (without official credentials) could well get you arrested.

As to over-flying the area, I would be very surprised if the airspace has not been closed to all except relief traffic.

What the people on the coast are facing today deserves respect and that means stay out of the way unless you're prepared to pitch in and help.

[Paddy Quinn]

of course, every up and coming news photographer and photojournalist who wan'ts to make a nmae for themselves and can commandeer some transport is also making their way down there - as did many of the well known "names" of today - stills, print or TV. Hitching a ride to a war zone or disaster. As much as it is about telling the story (and often very well told), it's also very much about careers.

[Scott Rosenberg]

stay home, Stay Home, STAY HOME!

as someone who lived through the Hurricane Andrew disaster and clean-up, the last thing they need in NO right now is another person fumbling around that is not involved with the rescue efforts. if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. since i'm assuming you have nothing to offer in that regard and are only going down there to take pictures, you would most assuredly be part of the problem.

[Michael J. Kravit]

As part of a damage assessment team during hurricane Andrew my suggestion would be to stay away from New Orleans and the surrounding states.

Conditions are tenuous, people will become very depressed and desparate as time goes on. Water, Ice, food and other basic necessities will be in short supply.

No to sound crude, but the last thing these people need is you running around taking photos.
Stay home and send money to the Red Cross.

[Frank Petronio]

The responses are interesting. I wonder if my name was "James Nachtwey" or "Joel Meyerowitz" rather than "Frank Petronio" if it would have been more acceptable with many of you to go to New Orleans...

I also have to wonder what things would be like if photographers didn't photograph the Civil Rights Movement in the early 60s, or the Vietnam War; or the African famines. Or any war for that matter, going back to Fenton and O'Sullivan. Certainly the photographers interfere with the people and consume resources (especially in a famine). And I bet Dorthea Lange met more than a few impoverished, humilated Okies who didn't want their shabby visages photographed either. She probably didn't get beat up because she was a woman, but given that she was an upper middle class professional, they probably didn't like her much.

But maybe those photos never really mattered. Afterall, Ansel Adams was off photographing rocks and trees during the depression and run-up to WW2 and maybe you think his photos really are more important than Capa's, the WPA, and all those nosey LIFE photographers.

I also have to wonder about using a hand camera instead of a large format camera. The whole point would be to capture images that the hundreds of press photographers won't because they likely aren't thinking in the same terms that a large format photographer might. Even if that means you don't get hundreds of shots.

It's all hypothetical of course. I don't have the cojones, selfishness, or the stupidity to venture south until things settle down in a few weeks. I do agree that right now is inappropriate and my presence would have a human cost. But for several months there should still be interesting photos to make, and by that time I should be able to get around without getting shot (at least as long as I don't run into some of you guys!)

[Jonathan Brewer]

The eternal paradox..............................being there/having to be there to get the story or shot, telling a story without using a crisis to achieve a selfish agenda at the cost human suffering. I was watching TV when Oswald was 'silenced' after he shot Kennedy(although I'm not too sure about that).

I watched Shepard on top of a crude rocket along w/everybody else, wondering if he was gonna get blown up, or take America into space for the first time, saw the picture in the paper Adams shot of the Vietnamese official shooting a prisoner in the head.

The one thing that galvanized me the most, made the hairs on the back of my head stand up, was the video taken by the Docter who was at the bottom of the World Trade Center, at the very moment it came down, he was sure he was watching and taping his own death, incredibly he survives, and then is lost in a dense and black fog, it looked like the bottom of hell,.........................his luckily coming upon a fireman w/oxygen,........................and asking for a 'toot' of oxygen so that he could keep breathing................................that video was priceless in terms of what it was like to go through that ordeal, and the heroism of the doctor, the moment was pure because I watched it knowing he wasn't a reporter playing it for all it was worth to boost his career.

What was more heroic about him was the fact that he wasn't looking for a story, he was the story, I guess there will always be someone there to tell the story, I wonder where the line ends in the need to tell a story for the benefit of the rest of us, and the line begins w/self promotion, can you seperate them at all?

[Roger Richards]

John Flavell has it just right. It would be best for those not working for a news organization to stay out of the area now. My paper has a photographer/writer team enroute, because much of the rescue ops will be done by folks from our area . Jonathan, most of the best photojournalists do not do it for the money or the adulation..there is very little of both to go around, and those who do soon find another way to earn a living.

Frank, to earn the rep that Jim Nachtwey has is at a cost to him that no one else can possibly calculate. The price he has paid, many times over, is why he can do what he does. The seasoned photojournalist knows when it is appropriate to make pictures, and when to just fade into the background. You have a great point about using LF to document another side of what is being recorded by most photographers now. Still, I believe that it would require someone with a lot of experience, luck, resources and people skills to pull it off at this present moment. I know several of the folks on scene and they are not rookies.

[Brian C. Miller]

For something like this, me, I'd wait until the water drained and the electricity was back on all over. They won't be razing all the damage within a couple of weeks, or maybe months. There will be plenty to photograph after everyone has calmed down.

From what I saw on the news this morning, things aren't going to be like they were for a very long time. I remember driving across some of the bridges that are now missing. That's going to take a long time to restore. There's going to be lots of devastation to photograph for some time.

[QT Luong]

Photojournalism is often about photographing people that are miserable. People that are miserable often don't like to be photographed. Yet I don't really see a general condemnation of photojournalism. Could it be the fact that the victims are, this time, American strike a particular chord with the American readership on this forum ?