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By Kenny Irby
For the past week, newsrooms and American citizens have been talking about photographs in a very different way.
Lots of e-mails, Internet chats, text messages and cell phone conversations begin with the words, “Did you see…?” Picture editors and visual leaders have spent days poring over thousands of photographs chronicling the Hurricane Katrina devastation and continuing tragedy.
In what may be the worst natural disaster on American soil, one thing is sure: We are just beginning to realize the magnitude and scope of the destruction as people remain stranded and in tremendous need. Photographic images (still and moving) have provided a humbling and uncompromised perspective on just how harsh the current reality is. For most, that reality is beyond our wildest imagination, verbal commentary, glaring headline or written account.
It was for Richard Kooken’s language arts class of 30 seventh-graders at John Hopkins Middle School in St. Petersburg, Fla. When I spoke to them Friday, they were all eager to learn about photojournalism. While they witnessed the slideshow I created of disaster images, silence filled the room. No computer games or cell phone noises were audible.
After they were vicariously transported to the streets of New Orleans and the surrounding Gulf Coast region, the students shared what surprised them, what they learned and what they still want to learn.
They were surprised to see the degree of devastation, the scope of tragic impact. They were struck by the number of people affected and the sense of hopelessness on the faces of many. They learned about the breadth of destruction, the horror of the aftermath, the random acts of kindness and heroic efforts made by some good Samaritans. They all wanted to know more about the looting pictures — they asked, “Where will these people go and how will the refugees be helped?”
Compelling photographic reportage offers a unique way of seeing America by getting in our face, tugging at our hearts and reducing us to very few words.
Certainly it did for one innocent, quiet and attentive young lady, Thya Olsen, who said that by witnessing the slideshow she now understands “why I should care.”
> Photo editors describe the work of their teams as they cover Katrina
> View 55 defining images of disaster and hope (Flash plugin required; download it here.)
> Send your best photos, along with credit information, captions and comments, to Kenny Irby, irbyman@poynter.org.
