Chris Jordan's Katrina work

[tim atherton]

In the context of the Burtynsky thread I looked again at Chris's website to remind myself why I p[refer his work to Burtynsky's - even when the subjects are similar.]

While there I saw Chris has his work from Hurricane Katrina and Louisiana up (If I remember correctly he popped up on here looking for hotels...)

IMO this work a definitely superior to the Polidori work in the New Yorker - even though the subjects are so similar and they are using basically the same paint box.



http://www.chrisjordan.com/

[Ron Marshall]

Powerful images.

[Michael Chmilar]

Excellent and amazing work!

I hope these will show up in a gallery in the Los Angeles area, so I can see the full-sized prints.

[medform-norm]

that was very enjoyable. Thanks for pointing it out. Great use of DOF and good sense of color. Amazing to think this work was done with an 8x10" camera!

[Bruce Watson]

I like Chris. When he contributes here, he always has something useful to say, and an interesting point of view. I like the work he was doing three or four years ago too - he certainly has an eye for color.

That said, do we really need more images that invoke despair, hopelessness, loss, and the rest of the raft of negative emotions? That seems to be what photography is devolving into. And it's not just photography as most of the other arts seem to be doing the same. I'm just saying, it's a crowded field that he's working in.

I don't need something to tell me that bad things happen. I don't need something to tell me that humans are stupid and wasteful. Instead what I need is something to inspire me to do better.

I know, I know, I'm about to get flamed into oblivion. But if I never see another "there's beauty in destruction" photograph it will be much too soon.

[tim atherton]

I'd just say I don't exactly think photography is "devolving" into this - it's been doing almost since the beginning, from at least Roger Fenton, through Matthew Brady et al, to Muybridge and others and the SF Earthquake - and many other natural disasters in the 19th through 20th Century, through to Misrach and his Western US nuclear wasteland.

imo it's more of a well established tradition than something new.

Yes, sometimes I also weary of this weeks latest disaster. But I'm also fascinated by looking through old photographs of the Battle of Balaklava

[Jeremy Moore]

Very good work. Taken out of the context of New Orleans the majority of the images also stand on their own--very powerful stuff.

[Frank Petronio]

Best work I've seen in awhile.

Thanks Tim for telling me to look.

Remember in the weeks after Katrina when people posted questions (like me) about travelling to New Orleans to photograph the aftermath and so many people said that it was a bad idea, an impediment for the helpers, and disrespectful to the victims? Chris's work proves them wrong. I'm really glad he went and did these. They are so much better than the "photo-journalism" photos the news magazines ran...

[Bill_1856]

Thank you, Tim.

[Bruce Watson]

I'll agree that photography has a well established tradition of this - but as photojournalism (which is where I place Matthew Brady and his mates) not as art.

When I think of art photography, I think along the lines of Stieglitz, Steichen, Weston, Adams (yes, Adams), Bourke-White, Cunningham, Karsh, and countless others. Even Steichen's fashion years weren't what I'd call photojournalism.

Maybe Chris is just exploring his connection to the photojournalistic tradition. Maybe, like Steichen, he'll go on to another genre. It just seems to me that he's got more in him than this. Maybe I'm just too easily disappointed.