I just picked up Polidori's photo essay book on Havana in a used book store. The images have the same quality... a sort of desolateness in pastels...

Wow. That puts things in perspective.

As a resident of New Orleans I don't exactly know how to say how this picture makes me feel. There's a disturbing beauty to it. The phrase desolate in pastels sums it up perfectly.

I reminds me of the smell (if you were not there, you can't imagine how purid) and the the amazing way a frigde can floa

It reminds me of the smell (if you were not there, you can't imagine how putrid) and the the amazing way a fridge can float.

Another remarkable documentation (in this same way of terrible beauty) is in a book by art photographer Chris Jordan, most noted for his monumentally-scaled color photos of landfills, cigarette butts and cell phone cast-offs.

"In Katrina's Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster"

http://www.chrisjordan.com/

I was literally moved to tears when I looked through this book.

Images from the Chris Jordan book are available at the Paul Kopeikin Gallery in LA.

www.paulkopeikingallery.com

There is something about that picture that is so moving and disturbing at the same time. I am not from New Orleans but remember reading the almost non stop coverage and seeing the devastation on t.v.

puts things in perspective is so true p2. i just keep staring at the items sadly hanging from the ceiling. and the poignant items still bravely clinging to the refrigorator. talk about a picture worth a thousand words......

I saw the show at the Met; it's not all that big of an exhibit, although they sell the book, which is HUGE. If the exhibit were much bigger, they would just about have to have tissues available.

For 2 years, when I was very young, we lived in the Lower 9th Ward, which was actually mainly very friendly working class folks. I remember that's where we lived when my dad explained to us that Dr. King had been shot and what it all meant, and how sad it was. I was 4 or 5 years old, I think.

The only exception to the friendly part was the little pair of blond children who lived down the block who wouldn't play with us anymore once we started playing with the huge family of black kids that moved next door to us.

I kind of shudder to think what 1001 Lizardi Street probably looked like after Katrina.

It has charm, but clutter seems to be a problem. Maybe you could burn your CD's to MP3s and sell them to make some space?

oh that really is sad. i see the once-was clean dishes still in the dish tray and i think, what a waste of time to have washed those dishes beforehand. :O(

infirm--
PLEASE tell us you posted that comment here, about another Thread, by mistake...!?

retitled:
ice water.

i live in louisiana and was in the french quarter this weekend. it was amazingly quiet. this photo sums up how we still feel...shaken and unsure. even a year later. but i still love new orleans and hope to make my home there one day. even battered and torn, it still feels like home. i hope its magic and its people return. soon.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/color-chips/color-chips-october-rain-collection-014094

foodfight@ted.com

happy thanks giving... WTF is with black friday.

Patrick (the other one), thank you so much for the link to the Chris Jordan site. It's strange how things can be so beautiful and terrible at the same time. Living here in New Orleans I saw much of the devastation up close (unfortunately) and the images are just overwhelming. They capture how capricious the whole thing was. My friend's entire house was destroyed, but her cheap barbecue grill did not move an inch from its place on the back patio. Just so otherworldly.

Mei--
My pleasure.

Saw the Polidori at Flowers East last month in London. The photos are beautiful and disturbing, but let's hope they don't come to be the defining image of the NOLA that is and was.

Please check out the Do You Know What It Means project (http://www.doyouknowwhatitmeans.org). They are trying to make a permanent archive of life before Katrina, so the cultures and communities of NOLA can live on.

About a gazillion NEW ORLEANS photographers took amazing photos of their city. So. Contractors and labors from outside the city are getting the paying work to rebuild - and here we have an outsider artist making a living from our city's suffering. I'm sorry - but thats lame.

Ralph -- Robert Polidori is one of the world's most celebrated contemporary fine art photographers. What does it matter that he isn't from New Orleans? If you are of the opinion that one should not prosper by exploiting the dire situation of others, I suggest you not watch this trailer for the documentary, Mardi Gras: Made in China.

http://www.mardigrasmadeinchina.com/trailer.html

My point is that people have not even been paying attention to the kick ass New Orleans arts and music scene, or New Orleans at all for that matter untill Katrina, and here comes an already famous photographer getting attention and cash for something New Orleans people are doing , doing it first and doing it better. I chose my words carefully, and didn't uses words like exploitation - I just said it was lame. Artists in New Orleans need money - they should be getting book deals and exhibits in New York.

I saw that documentary, good stuff. However, again, their are people in New Orleans making films and documentaries that aren't being paid attention to. New Orleans rules.

http://www.neworleansindexproject.org