Thursday, February 02, 2006

You can't even imagine...

Well today was our first day in New Orleans and it was shocking. We met up with fellow photographer named Sam Portera who took us to the 9th Ward. We left the hotel which is on Bourbon Street at 7am. We were shooting by 7:30am. The light was perfect.

The 9th Ward is absolutely terrifying. I can't believe this is the USA. Unbelievable.


Close your eyes and imagine this:
Homes moved off of their foundations and left in the streets, or onto other houses, or onto cars.

Or how about this. Cars flipped over. Cars on houses. Cars in houses. Washing machings in trees. Clothing everywhere. Shoes everywhere. Childrens toys everywhere.


Fortunately, the smell is gone but the mud/muck that is everywhere is incredibly slick and is filled with who-knows-what? The knee high rubber boots I bought have come in handy.

No photograph, mine or anyone elses, could ever convey the sadness and sheer destruction that took place here. The sights in the 9th ward are simply unbelievable.


I could go on and on but I will save that for another day.


The weather has been perfect. It was a bit overcast this morning but then cleared up nicely. Last night we had a massive thunderstorm pass over us with amazing lightning and booming thunder. The news said a tornado touched down at the airport last night. I believe it.

Jake set a personal and shot about 5 rolls of film. In one day!!! I shot eight. I could have shot more but the scenery is very hard to take. Very emotional. Very frustrating.

We met up in the afternoon with Dennis at Cafe Du Mond, a famous coffee shop. While there we watched a DVD that Dennis made of his photos and will be sending to members of congress to show what is going on here. Like Sam, Dennis lost his house and just about all of his possesions. I can't even imagine.

Well, we are getting up at 5:30am to head out with Dennis to Lakeview,
an upper middle class neighborhood with nice homes that was hit like the 9th Ward.

More later....

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home