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Katrinaville Chronicles: Images and Observations from a New Orleans Photographer
A remarkable compilation of black-and-white photographs and e-mails captures the devastation of hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in New Orleans, as he records the details of the disaster and shares his observations on political leaders, the hardships he found, and his concerns for his city's future.
- GenresPhotography
131 pages, Hardcover
First published April 1, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 1, 2020
This one offered an interesting perspective from the author who stayed in New Orleans during and after Katrina. Not sure why he chose some of the photos he did. Also, really annoying that he didn't fix the emails - used random abbreviations and just not written well. I get that you aren't always perfect when you email, but if you are going to publish them, it would have been nice to clean them up a bit. Not sure this one has stood the test of time.
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September 15, 2011Spielman, a New Orleanian-by-adoption, left his own house on the eve of Katrina to become the resident caretaker of a convent.. As reports of the oncoming storm became increasingly dire, Spielman urged his longtime neighbors and friends, the Poor Nuns of St. Clare, to flee town for the first time in their history. Surviving Katrina’s onslaught and his own attacks of fear and self-pity, Spielman, a professional photographer, constructed a way of life more creative than he had ever known, one devoted to observing and transforming Katrina’s aftermath via e-mails and his camera.
His e-mails and photographic subjects range from mud-crusted shirts, squat tanks and humvees rolling down St. Charles, and his cat, coincidentally named Walker. In one seemingly casual domestic snapshot, he curls in what Spielman calls the coolest place in the building:, a bathroom sink,.the cat’s shadow seeming to cool even more deeply the old cracked porcelain.
Only slowly do we notice the sunlight burning through an adjacent window. The contrasting images give way to a series of adjencies, even palimpsests. First appear, if subliminally, the TV footage of cats and dogs abandoned without food or clean water on porches; or taking shelter wherever else they could in the filthy stagnant lake that covered New Orleans while corpses of its citizens and their pets floated by.
Next, slowly and inevitably, that scorch of sunlight, via Spielman’s lens, remind us of those who died from dehydration and heat-stroke; then those deprived of any type of bathroom facility for many, many days, whether trapped in their own homes or in the hells that the Superdome and Convention Center quickly became, places where dignity and humanity came to seem impossible luxuries.
Despite Spielman’s genius for creating successive or overlapping psychological contexts and images, unlike Walker, he’s not a seasoned journalist, so apparently he needed some coaxing to publish his e-mails along with his post-Katrina photographs. He received a great deal of persuasion from some of his recipients, who included the famously prolific historian and biographer Doug Brinkley, current Tulane professsor.
His e-mails and photographic subjects range from mud-crusted shirts, squat tanks and humvees rolling down St. Charles, and his cat, coincidentally named Walker. In one seemingly casual domestic snapshot, he curls in what Spielman calls the coolest place in the building:, a bathroom sink,.the cat’s shadow seeming to cool even more deeply the old cracked porcelain.
Only slowly do we notice the sunlight burning through an adjacent window. The contrasting images give way to a series of adjencies, even palimpsests. First appear, if subliminally, the TV footage of cats and dogs abandoned without food or clean water on porches; or taking shelter wherever else they could in the filthy stagnant lake that covered New Orleans while corpses of its citizens and their pets floated by.
Next, slowly and inevitably, that scorch of sunlight, via Spielman’s lens, remind us of those who died from dehydration and heat-stroke; then those deprived of any type of bathroom facility for many, many days, whether trapped in their own homes or in the hells that the Superdome and Convention Center quickly became, places where dignity and humanity came to seem impossible luxuries.
Despite Spielman’s genius for creating successive or overlapping psychological contexts and images, unlike Walker, he’s not a seasoned journalist, so apparently he needed some coaxing to publish his e-mails along with his post-Katrina photographs. He received a great deal of persuasion from some of his recipients, who included the famously prolific historian and biographer Doug Brinkley, current Tulane professsor.
May 28, 2011
Wow, this book put some things into perspective for me. Ironically, I checked it out from the library before I knew Hurricane Ike was headed for us. Then when it hit, we had no power for a week. Guess what I spent the week reading with a flashlight? It was amazing and heartbreaking to see the photos in this book, and read about how badly New Orleans was devastated. It did help me to be even more thankful that my house was still standing around me, that my family was all alive and together, that we really had it pretty good. We even got a reprieve of cooler weather immediately after the hurricane, something that New Orleans did NOT experience after Katrina.
The text is comprised completely of emails sent by David Spielman, who chose to stay in New Orleans to "hold down the fort" at the convent where the Poor Clares lived (they evacuated to Brenham, TX). The emails were engaging, scary, exciting, sad, and poignant. I really felt like I was closer to experiencing the whole ordeal by reading about it in emails, since they were written in the heat of each moment (quite literally--they had a horrid heatwave after the storm).
After reading this book, I think I feel more compassion for New Orleans residents and all those affected by Katrina in such an awful way. It was hard to even understand or feel what those people must have been through, lived with, or died in, when we were seeing it reported on tv three years ago. But this book makes it really personal. My prayers go up for N.O. residents, still. Such a sad and awful tragedy.
The text is comprised completely of emails sent by David Spielman, who chose to stay in New Orleans to "hold down the fort" at the convent where the Poor Clares lived (they evacuated to Brenham, TX). The emails were engaging, scary, exciting, sad, and poignant. I really felt like I was closer to experiencing the whole ordeal by reading about it in emails, since they were written in the heat of each moment (quite literally--they had a horrid heatwave after the storm).
After reading this book, I think I feel more compassion for New Orleans residents and all those affected by Katrina in such an awful way. It was hard to even understand or feel what those people must have been through, lived with, or died in, when we were seeing it reported on tv three years ago. But this book makes it really personal. My prayers go up for N.O. residents, still. Such a sad and awful tragedy.
May 2, 2009
There were some good photos, but the text, which was comprised of emails Spielman sent out to friends in the days and weeks after Katrina, could have been better. Either the emails should have been edited or someone else should have written the text.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews