Visiting disaster sites

[darr]

Wow QT what a comment. How would an American that has been subjected to the wrath of Katrina respond to your query?

I'm down here in Homestead Florida feeling pretty darn thankful for our small loses to Katrina after I viewed the television coverage of New Orleans, Mississippi, etc. I did hear some incredible comments given by an interviewer from Europe on the Fox News today say that a lot of Europeans think Americans deserve this disaster because of global warming and something about Americans having three cars to a household.

I know being an American is not as popular as it use to be (more popular during/after WWI and WWII), but if a photographer would come to Homestead Florida to photograph the three car homes I would gladly drive them through this lovely community to search for such a windfall. It doesn't exist here!

Like a lot of America today, Homestead Florida is economically in the dumps and full of immigrants. Most of the immigrants are here illegally at the mercy of the so-called greedy hard working American who pays his taxes to support them and their families. I could get into this, but then I would probably appall so many forum readers you would delete this message.

Instead of photographing three car homes, right now the picture where I am at is one of incredible stench. I am lucky enough to live on the rural side of Homestead where the horses, cows, goats, chickens and lots of stray dogs usually live. Unfortunately a lot of those animals are laying out in the fields and side of roads, bloated and very dead. I see great pictures of an American tragedy, but then you suggest it probably is only being thrown out on this forum by Americans because we are very close to it and not just on the other side of the TV screen. Well I do not think it is a bad thing to talk about it. It may actually help someone who is depressed over the scene just to know that others shed some sympathy and compassion their way.

“Could it be the fact that the victims are, this time, American strike a particular chord with the American readership on this forum?”

I think the recent financial aid and services donated by America and her hard working people speak to how American’s respond to tragedies globally. This response is not intended to inflame anyone, but your query is questionable to me, but I do not know how the forum readership went when other natural disasters happened abroad and/or nationally in the U.S.

Give cash to the <font color=red>American Red Cross</font color> just as you did for the tsunami tragedy!

Darlene

[Jonathan Brewer]

'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.'......................................................................I certainly agree, but that goes for anybody who wants to do anything who is in fact sincere..................keyword in what you said involves 'the best' of the photojournalists which doesn't cover them all, I watched what I always thought was the best of journalism, 'Frontline', because when they interviewed somebody you usually didn't see the interviewer, so there was no cult of personality only the story, then again, 'making a name for yourself' IS part of the equation or how else do your get the credibility and the job?

My point is that there's been several references to 'people who know what they're doing', at some point they didn't know what they were doing, they had to learn, who then subsequently gave them the right/permission to here/there/anywhere where the story is and not someone else?

We went through this with the second gulf war, it was well chronicled how some of these freelance folks got killed trying to do this, one of these was a photographer on the 'fringe' who paid his way down there to get that 'seminal' image that stamp him with legitimacy because he didn't have the contacts or whatever, there are probably countless journalism/photojournalism students out there that will NEVER get a job in their chosen field, I think the process of selection is pretty much arbitrary.

My point is that I agree w/you that the best folks doing anything don't do it for the money, but then again how do you stand out to get the job, and how do you stand out to get the job w/o being a 'self promoter'?

Thinking about what Darlene said, it struck me that RIGHT AFTER 911, EVERYBODY felt our pain, many from other countries said 'WE ARE ALL AMERICANS', in reaction to the terrorist attacks.....................................decisions and subsequent events AFTER 911 changed things, and this was sad.

[Rainer]

"I did hear some incredible comments given by an interviewer from Europe on the Fox News today say that a lot of Europeans think Americans deserve this disaster because of global warming and something about Americans having three cars to a household"

Just let me say, that an overwhelming majority of Europeans definetly does NOT think like this!

Yes, you are responsible for environmental pollution and global warming, but so are we in Europe!

As much as I´ve seen on Fox and their way of doing "journalism" (if you want to call it so), i suspect they are even looking for people to bring up antiamerican slogans ... which results in anti-european slogans on the other side. That´s the way the media machinery works nowadays ...

[Roger Richards]

Jonathan, I totally agree with you on Frontline being an example of excellent journalism. Also, young photographers will always try to break in to the business and create a name for themselves by just showing up. usually there are many of them who do. The vast majority soon realize that they are in over their heads, and that the 'glamor' is just a myth. Over the years, in many a nasty situation, I have seen this personally.

One example. In December 1992, the Serbs had a total stranglehold on Sarajevo; no UN aircraft were flying into or out of the city because one had been shot down by a SAM a couple of months before. The only way in was by road through Serb checkpoints, and then through open 'free-fire' territory. On the outskirts of the city, in a town called Kiseljak, I ran into a couple of Japanese journalists, a reporter and photographer from Asahi Shimbun, who were attempting to get into the city. There was heavy bombardment, so it was a no-go for anyone that day, even the UN aid convoys. I was going to make the attempt the following morning. I realized that these two guys were totally green, and were likely to get into trouble. They had been in Italy for an assignment and decided to go 'visit' the war to see for themselves what was going on. Anyway, I took them under my wing and we made it into Sarajevo the next day. The following day, a Sunday, only hours after we entered, they both cracked when heavy shelling started. I had to find a sympathetic Canadian officer attached to the UN who arranged for me to have them evacuated in an armored personnel carrier. They had almost too late realized that war was not a party when metal begins singing through the air.

The young photographer you mention was Gad Gross, a very talented Harvard grad working for JB Pictures, and he got killed because of inexperience. He was working with my agency colleague, Gamma photographer Alain Buu, and someone else with a group of Kurdish resistance fighters when they were overwhelmed by Saddam's soldiers. Alain and the other journalist disassociated themselves from the Kurds, while Gad Gross stayed with them as they tried to escape. Saddam's guys caught them and shot them all. Alain was captured and then released.
One bad decision, and bad luck, no second chance. The majority of journalists killed in war are either very inexperienced or those who stick around in the profession too long.

All this said, I believe that what has happened on the Gulf Coast is a significant historical event. A dedicated LF photographer's documenation of it would be thanked by history, IMHO.

[Brian C. Miller]

QT, I don't think that its about photojournalism, its about an amateur photographer going in with only personal support into the immediate aftermath of a major disaster. I have seen (we all have seen, haven't we?) incredible photographs of the devistation. These photographs come from news crews which have lots of underlying support from major networks, etc. I have been reading reports of gunfire, and mentioned in one article is that a supply truck was hijacked by gunmen. Going in right now is a bad idea. Visiting in a month or two is a much better idea.

[Oren Grad]

But photojournalism is changing, too. With digital P&S cameras of decent quality now ubiquitous, an increasing amount of on-the-spot documentation is coming from amateurs who happen to be there, much more than used to be the case when you could only work with a film camera. Yes, a lot of it is junk, but there's also lots of really good stuff being created by local people who are by definition not at all out of place. How this flood of pictures will get sorted into a systematic historical record remains to be seen, but it's no longer the case that if the "pros" didn't come riding in, there would be no record to speak of.

As for artsy LF documentation by outsiders, it needs to wait until the crisis is past, just like other private indulgences.

[Ed Richards]

I live in Baton Rouge, where we are staging the rescue effort for NO. They are doing their best to clear out the city and have ejected as many news photographs as they can. This is due to the looting and I also suspect because they are parnoid about the coverage, but the reason does not much matter. While I would love to be down there doing LF, the odds of getting mugged by an armed gang are good, and the odds of getting run off by a guardsman, maybe without getting to grab your stuff, are better. They threw the parish president (county commissioner) out of his own parish!

[John Cook]

I would be interested in seeing this thread take a different tack away from the logistics and danger of travel and the nuisance factor of the photographer (all excellent points) to the anticipated visual content of the large format images which might be sought or obtained.

Traditional LF documentation of the civil war seems to concentrate on dead soldiers arranged around the battlefield. (Some, it is alleged, by the photographer to enhance his composition.)

The dust bowl images I recall are largely quiet, passive, sad portraits of destitute shack-dwellers.

But as this is written, the television images I am seeing show a lot of action. Things which are perhaps better photographed with handheld digital or pushed film, as with a wartime firefight in action.

It may be that the images from the past were made after the main action settled down. Or it may be that modern technology has allowed a different sort of news coverage.

We have excellent “big picture” overview documentation from satellites. Lots of medium-distance telephoto video “fly-bys” from helicopters. And “in-your-face” video and 35mm images of poignant moments from photojournalists on the ground.

Supposing for a moment that we were welcome by everybody and had all the logistical resources required, what sort of images would be on the “shot wish-list” for slow and careful photography in 8x10 or ULF?

[GPS]

The thing is in fact very easy - someone who asks so "green" questions has nothing to do there at this time.

[Paddy Quinn]

"I would be interested in seeing this thread take a different tack away from
the logistics and danger of travel and the nuisance factor of the
photographer (all excellent points) to the anticipated visual content of
the large format images which might be sought or obtained."

one aspect is the fact that this isn't exactly a "natural" disaster - it is in large part man made and was predicted.

Even National Geographic - usually sleepy and irrelevant - got it (read their worse case scenario in the first few paras: http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/ )

FEMA studies in 2001 listed it as one of the top three potential disasters in the US (along with a terror attack on NY city). The US Army Corps of Engineers had it funding for expanding protection of New Orleans from flooding cut by 44% (said funding apparently diverted to Iraq), as well as their study of flooding following a disaster scrapped last year. Finally, the ban on developing the wetlands around New Orleans was lifted by the Administration in 2003. The wetlands provide the flooding buffer for the city - developing them reduces that buffer dramatically.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune, headline online was: "No one can say they didn't see it coming ..."

Story:
"No one can say they didn't see it coming":

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/08/31/disaster_preparation/index.html

So finding a way to photogrpah some of that back story seems very suited to LF, as well as the general aftermath?