Visual Comm Quarterly: Seeing Katrina: Perspectives on a Cultural/Natural Disaster

Seeing Katrina:Perspectives of Judgement in a Cultural/Natural Disaster

By Eric S. Jenkins

Never before has the divide betweennature and culture so deliquesced as onAugust 29, 2005, when Hurricane Kat-rina flood waters disintegrated the lev-

ees protecting New Orleans. As the thin veneer ofcivilization ripped away, a desperate populace, pri-marily poor and African-American, remained asemblems of and witnesses to the failures and fis-sures in modernity’s utopian promises. Most publiccommentators, however, avoided condemnation ofthe development project, the racist colonial history,or a capitalist ecological hubris. Instead, blamerested primarily on two familiar counterparts––nature or culture. Some preferred to depict Katrinaas a natural disaster, a tragic yet unavoidable actof a fickle earth. Others relied on the cultural expla-nation, blaming the incompetence and insensitivityof political actors ranging from the Federal Emer-gency Management Agency to the mayor of NewOrleans to George W. Bush. The explanationunquestionably deserves more complexity than thetypical media treatment; however, the media’svivid images surely structure the contours of popu-lar judgments and perceptions. Images of down-trodden African-Americans, struggling against anuncontrollable nature, underwrite both the naturaland cultural versions. Just as some expect to seeindigenous peoples inhabiting the “wild,” expecta-

tions were reinforced when African-American bod-ies dotted the “natural” disaster. Similarly, just aswe might anticipate insidious politicians pullinghidden levers, presuppositions were bolsteredwhen bungling bureaucrats magnified the “cultural”tragedy.

These are familiar explanations, and the familiar pol-itics of left/right, black/white, and public/privatequickly emerged to filter the meanings of the disas-ter everyone witnessed. The question is: How canso many people see similar images and end up withsuch different evaluations? Why does the responseto Katrina seem trapped into replicating the sametired reasons and politics? Some, such as an earlyBarthes (1977), might explain the varied interpreta-tions of the images as the result of the anchorageand relay effects of the discursive frame. Peopleinterpret the images in these ways because thewords direct us to these reads and divert us fromothers. Obviously, the discursive frames played arole, evidenced by the controversy over captionsdescribing African-American victims “looting” andAnglo victims “finding food.” However, is there alsosomething in the images that contributes to theseevaluations? Marco Abel (2003) concludes that,indeed, the modes of seeing influence the possiblemeanings of events. I agree, and, following Abel, I

Visual Communication Quarterly 92 Volume 14 Spring 2007

This article examines a series of photographs from The Washington Postcovering Hurricane Katrina. I argue that the modes of seeing in the imagesstructure the possible meanings of the event. These images represent thedocumentary mode which, in pursuit of “objectivity,” positions the viewer ina stance of detachment and judgment. In the rush to judge, familiaridentifications of left/right, culture/nature, and public/private, surface as theprimary grounds for evaluation. In the photographs, the urban characteristicsof the scene direct the viewers’ identification. The various judgments divergebased on how the viewer identifies with this urban scene. In short, I arguethat how we saw Katrina influences how the disaster was interpreted. Thestale interpretations, from cultural to natural, are both equally structured intothe photographs. Producing different evaluations, from anti-globalization tothe anti-racist, requires interrogation of the dominant news-media mode andthe imaging of new points of view.

> Previous pages: William J. Allen. © 2005, St. Petersburg Times. Original in color.

have examined numerous photographs of the hurri-cane Katrina disaster in search of the modes of see-ing inscribed therein. I conclude that the imagesoperate according to a documentary mode of seeingthat places the viewer in a position of judgment andencourages them to fall back on familiar, andstereotypical, evaluations.

To illustrate this proposition, I examine 165 photo-graphs featured by The Washington Post (seehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/photo/special/7/).1 The images includemost of the photographs widely featured and dis-tributed in national newspapers and magazines.The number of photographs does not come close toconstituting a complete sample of the coverage,but I do believe the galleries are a representativeexample. Furthermore, the images obviously do notaccount for the television coverage of the event,but many of the documentary techniques describedin this article are frequently used in television aswell. I do not argue that these images alone areentirely accountable for the various explanations ofKatrina. However, I do conclude that images playeda role irreducible to their discursive framing, asshown by their modes of seeing.

To articulate this argument, I proceed in three sec-tions. In the first section, I define modes of seeingas the points of view constructed between viewerand image-objects. I then describe the dominantnews-media mode––the documentary mode. I illus-trate through these Katrina photographs that thismode places the viewer above, outside, anddetached from the scene, ascribing a position ofjudgment. This mode demands judgment from thedetached observer, yet it does not explain why Kat-rina inspired such divergent evaluations. Therefore,in the second section, I examine the process ofjudgment in more detail. Following Michel Fou-cault, I argue that judgment depends on the dis-crimination of identity and difference. I then look inthe Katrina photos for various possibilities of identi-fication, which rest primarily in the features of theurban scene. The split between identity and differ-ence maps onto a split between the urban and sub-urban in the Katrina photographs. Depending onviewer identification, the possibilities of a culturalor natural judgment simultaneously exist within theseen scene.

In the third section, I use this analysis to drawsome conclusions for the continued study of visualrhetoric. My analysis demonstrates the need tofocus as much on how images are produced as onwhat they depict. Furthermore, the conservativeand hierarchical implications of the documentarymode suggest the desperate need for alternativemodes of seeing in news presentation. I discusssome alternative Katrina photographs, contrastedagainst the documentary mode. These imagespoint to some alternative possibilities for photojour-nalism, based on new modes of seeing. The divi-sive and stale responses to the horrific and poten-tially eye-opening Katrina tragedy should amplypresage the perils of continuing with status-quomodes.

Judgment in the Documentary Mode

Abel’s (2003) work, based on an exceptionalaccount of Don DeLillo’s 9/11 essay “In the Ruinsof the Future,”2 motivates my analysis of theseKatrina images. Abel, supported by the cinematheories of André Bazin and Gilles Deleuze, con-cludes that the appearance of an event, by repro-ducing various modes of seeing, structures itspossible meanings. In other words, “what anevent means is always already shot through withhow it appears” (Abel, 2003, p. 1236). What doesAbel mean by “modes of seeing”? Primarily,modes of seeing are points of view or perspec-tives. Points of view “inhere in events” becausethey are “relations of force” between the subject(viewer) and object (image). Subjects andobjects, then, are the effects of a mutual interac-tion, emerging from the particular point of viewand related primarily through the flavor of theencounter such as direction, distance, andangle––in short, style (Abel, 2003, p. 1237). Byintroducing a point of view, representations manu-facture the possible stances taken towards thecontent (Barthes’ studium), structuring the possi-ble rhetorical ripostes (Barthes, 1981). So, inshort, Abel theorizes that the point of view fromwhich an event is seen influences the meaningsascribed to the event. For Abel, DeLillo’s portrayalof 9/11 is exemplary due to its contrast with thedominant modern perspective typically brought tobear on events.

Pages 90–107 93 Visual Communication Quarterly

For much of Western visual thought, the vieweris seen as “the locus for and horizon of percep-tion” (Abel, 2003, p. 1238). The conceiving sub-ject stands outside the event, capturing its objec-tive essence. Such beliefs can be traced back tothe invention of linear perspective. Beginning inthe Renaissance, linear perspective dominatedWestern art. Linear perspective emulates three-dimensional space by constructing parallel linesrunning into the image and merging at a commonvanishing point. This approach gives the illusionof depth and centers the perspective at a singlepoint outside. The viewer looks into the image asin the infamous metaphor of Alberti’s window(Jay, 1993, pp. 51–60). News photography,although not exactly a linear perspective, alsoconstructs a window on the world, placing theviewer outside of the image. The demand forobjectivity necessitates erasure of subjectivity,whether of the photographer or the spectator.Photojournalism inculcates a specific, if oftenunrecognized, mode of seeing.

Cara Finnegan (2001a) labels this mode of seeingthe “documentary mode,” which draws upon “natu-ral materials,” “living scenes,” and “actual facts”(p. 60). In her work on depression-era photography,Finnegan (2001b) illustrates the potent rhetoricalforce accompanying this mode of seeing. “Becausewe perceive photographs as fundamentally ‘realis-tic,’ we make assumptions about their argumenta-tive potential. I call this process the ‘naturalisticenthymeme’: we assume photographs to be ‘true’or ‘real’ until we are given reason to doubt them”(Finnegan, 2001b, p. 135). Multiple scholars notethis naturalizing power of the photograph. SusanSontag (1977) claims, “Something we hear about,but doubt, seems proven when we’re shown a pho-tograph of it” (p. 5). Because the photo derivesfrom the reflections of light off the referent, view-ers often ascribe to photographs a higher truthvalue. Barthes (1981) contends that this is pre-cisely the “noeme” of photography, the “that-has-been” message always conveyed about the image-objects (p. 80). Barthes (1977) sees danger in the


< The body of a victim of Hurricane Katrina floats in fetid floodwaters in New Orleans. Tens of thousandsof survivors still need to be evacuated from disaster zones in Louisana. © James Nielsen––AFP. Originalin color.


photographic consciousness of its “having-been-there” because it naturalizes myths (p. 44). Thesebeliefs are, of course, cultural assumptions ratherthan ontological realities, especially given digitalphotography and editing software. Yet, it is thesecultural modes of seeing that supply images withtheir disarming power, leading Hariman andLucaites (2003) to call such beliefs “the naturalattitude of ideology” (p. 37).

The documentary mode is evident throughout newsmedia coverage, particularly the Katrina images inthis article. Yet, the problem posed by the Katrinaimages is not the naturalization of ideology. Indeed,the divergent responses to and evaluations of thedisaster, from cultural to natural, suggest an ideo-logical divide. All of the images follow the tenantsof photorealism, marked by the highest culturalstandards of modality, or “the truth value or credi-bility of … statements about the world” (Kress &van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 160). Thus, we can assumealmost everyone believes the photos represent real

events. The ethical and political issues arise fromthe perspective or point-of-view embodied in thephotos. The images place the viewer in a positionthat is distant, above, outside, and uninvolved withthe image objects. This placement occurs throughthe framing and angles of the photographs. I isolatefour primary views that I label the virtual view, theaerial view, the ground-level view, and the face-to-face view. I will describe each view, and the mean-ings that, in turn inhere in these perspectives.

The virtual view, projected via satellite, occursfrom a great distance, from high above, and atsuch a wide angle as to efface all human presence.These images, although infrared or thermal, repre-sent the first entry of Katrina into public sight.Kress and van Leeuwen (1996) describe theseimages as objective rather than subjective, deriving“from the fact that it does not stop at appearances,but probes beyond the surface, to deeper, morehidden levels” (p. 150). They contend that in objec-tive images the question of involvement and

detachment is not yet broached. However, thesatellite images do imply a modicum of involve-ment for those who live on the Gulf Coast anddetachment for those who reside elsewhere. Satel-lite images warn people of impending danger,requiring the viewer to interpret the objectiveimage as a very real threat. This view from highabove and at a great distance constructs a stanceof judgment, with the viewer determining the bestcourse of action to take to protect themselves.While satellite images are a valuable tool, the use-fulness remains confined to people with theresources to escape.

The aerial view occurs from above, framed byeither long shots (human figures occupy about halfframe height) or very long shots (anything larger).The aerial view marks the first entry of the hurri-cane’s devastation in public consciousness. Theyfollow two general themes. The first theme por-trays natural devastation such as massive waves,submerged houses, or breached levees, as in thePool photographs. The second theme involveshuman presence grappling with the natural disas-ter. Human bodies pock the images, but not in thecentral line of sight. Instead, smaller figures,mostly African-American and frequently a crowdedmass, struggle against the overwhelming naturalcalamity. The Nielsen image features a woman toil-ing to feed her dog while bodies, the flood waters,and the errant trash accumulate. Since this imageonly includes two bodies, it is not exactly repre-sentative. However, the Nielsen photograph waswidely distributed and on many front pages, so Ichose to display it here. Most of the aerial imagesinclude a larger number of people and even lesshuman detail. This perspective shows few humanfeatures such as facial expression, instead focusingon masses suffering against a cruel surrounding.Even here, the view predominantly effaces personaland cultural detail.

Photographic frames (or shots) portray distance inways that map into communication studies of prox-emics. Proxemics signifies the study of space as anonverbal means of communication. Such longshots transmit a stance of public distance, or “thedistance between people who are and are toremain strangers” (Hall, quoted in Kress & vanLeeuwen, 1996, p. 131). Public distance constructs

a relationship between viewer and image that sug-gests disconnection and unfamiliarity. Furthermore,the high angle conveys a relationship of powerbetween viewer and victim. Kress and vanLeeuwen (1996) conclude, “If a represented partici-pant is seen from a high angle, then the relationbetween the interactive participants…and the rep-resented participants is depicted as one in whichthe interactive participant has power over the rep-resented participant” (p. 146). This point of viewestablishes a relationship of power over distantstrangers.

Michel de Certeau (1984) makes a similar point, fit-tingly through the example of peering down on thecity from atop the World Trade Center. For deCerteau, this is the view of the voyeur god, a per-spective that creates a fictional knowledge respon-sible for totalizing human texts and misunderstand-ing practices. “The voyeur god created by thisfiction…must disentangle himself from the murkyintertwining daily behaviors and make himself aliento them” (de Certeau, 1984, p. 93). Perhaps thealienation of the voyeur god explains why reportersfrom CNN, Fox News, the New York Times, andUSA Today all uttered the “Third World” compari-son with Katrina (Brooks, 2005). The view is fromabove, from a safe distance, and at such a wideangle as to erase many human features, includingmost national or cultural markers. These imagesare frequently indiscernible from the pictures ofdevastation such as the recent tsunami.3 This viewfrom above, at a safe distance, blurs the complexi-ties and complications found at the ground level.

De Certeau prefers the perspective from the ground,valorizing walking through the city as a resistantchallenge to the fixation imposed by the perspectiveof the voyeur god. When the photojournalists beganwalking the streets of New Orleans, however, theirimages continued to construct a judgmental point ofview, fixing the victims and the scene in ways notnecessarily resistant or transgressive. The groundlevel perspective features images mostly framed bythe medium-long (showing full human figures) ormedium shot (cut off at the knees). While theimages show the scene at eye level, conveying asense of equality, they frequently are staged hori-zontally at an oblique angle. In oblique angles, thephotographer does not align the viewer frontally


with the represented, but instead observes themfrom the side at an angle. In the Gay photograph,the SWAT team is portrayed frontally while the sur-rounding victims are portrayed obliquely. The vic-tims are literally on the sidelines. Once again, thepoint of view constructs a relationship of social dis-tance, rather than personal or intimate distance.Social distance is the space maintained in publicinteraction with strangers (such as cashiers in astore) or acquaintances (such as business associ-ates). This implies a relationship of minimal attach-ment. The oblique angle further serves to separatethe viewer and referent by conveying a sense ofwatching from the outside. Kress and van Leeuwen(1996) summarize the implications, “The obliqueangle says ‘what you see here is not part of ourworld; it is their world, something we are notinvolved with’” (p. 143). In the Gay photograph,then, the SWAT team is staged frontally, as part ofthe viewer’s world, while the victims are stagedobliquely, as outsiders. Of course, the obliquenessof an angle is measured in degrees, and a few ofthe Katrina photographs take a frontal perspective.Yet, the overwhelming number take an obliqueangle, and, as we shall see in the face-to-face pho-tographs, even those with a frontal view generallysuggest the dispassionate detachment of avoyeuristic perspective.

Finally, as the aftermath continued to unfold, photo-journalists became able to directly engage the vic-tims through face-to-face photographs. Theseimages frame the victims according to themedium-close or close shot, allowing the detailedportrayal of human features and expressions. Onceagain, these images usually occur from the eye-level, suggesting equality in power differences. Furthermore, many of these images take a frontalview, suggesting attachment between viewer andimage. However, one final element of perspectivenoted by Kress and van Leeuwen requires attentionas it relates to the documentary mode of seeing inphotojournalism. Kress and van Leeuwen (1996)distinguish between “offer” and “demand” pictures(pp. 122–124). In demand pictures, the representedparticipants connect with the viewer via vectorsformed by their eyes or gestures. In other words,the represented look or motion out of the imagetowards the viewer, establishing an imaginary con-tact. Demand pictures began with the techniques

of portraiture, and, importantly, the demand subjec-tifies the represented participants. They call out tothe viewer, embracing them in a mutual gaze, andthereby forming a bond. In contrast, the offerimage objectifies those represented. The repre-sented do not directly address the viewer; instead,they remain involved in the surrounding scene. Theviewer becomes an “invisible onlooker … it ‘offers’the represented participants to the viewer as itemsof information, objects of contemplation, imperson-ally, as though they were specimens in a displaycase” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996, p. 124).

Obviously, it is the demand for objective informa-tion that creates the impetus for journalists to relyprimarily on “offer” pictures. However, it is stillastonishing that almost every Katrina image inves-tigated here, whether from a frontal or obliqueangle, from the medium-long to the close shot, rep-resents the victims as objects of the viewer’s con-templation. Thus, even in the face-to-face imageswhich likely inspired the most sympatheticresponse, a stance of hierarchy and detachment ismaintained. While we can recognize these victimsin their cultural and human detail, we still see themfrom an objectifying point of view. Contrary to bothFinnegan and Sontag, who see a democratizinginfluence in photography, photo-realism in the doc-umentary mode appears, in this example, to importa hierarchical and authoritative stance.4

To summarize, the four primary views of Katrinamaintain a perspective of distance, power, detach-ment, and externality that seem inherent in thedocumentary mode of seeing. These characteristicsposition the viewer in the stance of judge. For Abel(2003), this stance leads to “what Foucault andDeleuze dub the indignity of speaking for others”(p. 1241). The danger is that speaking for othersoften results in the erasure of difference and other-ness through the mistaken and disguised insertionof interested self-perspective into the discussion.With the Katrina recovery effort including fatchecks to mega-corporations and excluding dis-placed residents from the reconstruction (Davis,2005), Abel’s conclusion appears powerfully adept.

As an alternative, DeLillo’s work provides a newmode of response-ability, avoiding the pitfalls ofspeaking for others by refusing to assign meaning


and saddle the event with judgment. Judgmentbrings a perspective from the outside, from the no-place of the cogito. DeLillo, instead, foregroundsthe “event’s how,” weaving a story that continuallyshifts narrative perspective (Abel, 2003, p. 1237).Suspending judgment is not moral relativism or theelimination of agency, but an active stance portray-ing the world from the perspective of the eventrather than the subject. DeLillo, after all, writes acompelling account. Instead, “DeLillo’s reconfigura-tion of response as aesthetic stance—as response-ability—suggests that response is about a mood, arhythm, or a capacity to give oneself to the pri-macy of the event” (Abel, 2003, p. 1237).

Seeing all the stale binaries of Western culturedeployed in response to Katrina poignantly adducesAbel’s argument. The “false” essentialisms of suburban/urban, black/white, nature/culture, andpublic/private somehow show up in the “true”images of the tragedy. How could such a singulardisaster replicate all the familiar patterns? Whydoes the response to Katrina seem trapped intoreplicating the same tired reasons? Neither of theprimary explanations (one seeing the disaster asnatural and unavoidable and the other blamingracist politicians) focuses much attention on thedeeper causes such as poverty, segregation,“white flight,” flaws in the built environment, eco-logical devastation to wetlands, overdevelopmentof the river basin, global warming, or the prioritiza-tion of funding for the military-industrial complexover basic infrastructural needs. Can it be thatspeaking for others guarantees such simplisticevaluations? What, then, do we do in the midst ofa disaster, when so few people have the access,ability, or resources to speak for themselves? Inemergencies, some degree of speaking for othersmay be necessary and justified. The question thatremains is how did the images inspire such sim-plistic judgments, especially ones as opposed asthe culture versus nature take? This is the questionaddressed in my next section.

Identity and Difference: Urban and Suburban

The news media photographs of Katrina operateaccording to a documentary mode of seeing with

two primary results. First, the images are thoughtto represent a realistic depiction of the traumaticand devastating event. Second, the images placeviewers in a position of judgment above, detachedfrom, and outside the world represented in thoseimages. Why, then, did such divergent, opposi-tional evaluations surface? As representations ofreality, the images place the viewer in an evalua-tive frame that relies on the discrimination of iden-tity and difference. In The Order of Things, Foucault(1970) traces the emergence of representation asthe fundamental basis for Western knowledge tothe first half of the seventeenth century. Whereasbefore signs were thought to proceed from resem-blance (i.e., a sign signifies based upon its simili-tude with the thing signified), in this period,thinkers believe the sign relates to the signifiedthrough representation. In other words, the signrepresents without a necessary, nonarbitrary con-nection to the thing represented. Thought no longerconsists in drawing things together based onresemblance but, on the contrary, in discriminatingthrough the comparison of identity and difference.Foucault (1970) concludes, “Western reason isentering the age of judgment” (p. 61).

This may be a difficult way of saying that judgmentdepends on the thoughtful discrimination betweenidentity and difference, but Foucault’s archaeologi-cal investigation demonstrates the basic import ofthis conceptualization to the unfolding of Westernthought. In the era of representation, the subjectmakes evaluations through their analysis of identityand difference. Within the practice of documentaryphotorealism, the viewer is asked to make a judg-ment about a real event. However, the images offerlittle guidance for their judgments, as shown by thedivergent evaluations of the disaster. Instead, theviewer must interpret the elements in order tomake a judgment. These interpretations rely on theviewer’s assumptions of identity and difference.Some viewers identify the scene as a natural dis-aster, seeing this as the only realistic explanation.Others identify the scene as a cultural catastrophe,seeing the “real” cause of racist politicians. Bothjudgments stem from the viewer’s identifications.Asked to judge realistically but provided little guid-ance, viewer’s fall back on familiar (often stereo-typical) explanations. The viewer who previouslyidentifies a racist system sees in Katrina a real



example of racism and, hence, a cultural disaster.The viewer who instead, identifies otherwise, dismisses the cultural explanation, seeing a naturaldisaster. In short, both explanations inhere in thestance of judgment, varying according to the familiar identifications of the viewer.

Of course, numerous factors beyond the imagescontribute to how the audience identifies with theKatrina disaster and its victims, such as party affili-ation, other public commentary, the discursiveframing, and socio-economic status. Yet, theimages also certainly played a role, as demon-strated by my forthcoming analysis and much ofthe audience-response research conducted sincethe disaster occured (noted later). The divergent(cultural and natural) evaluations point to differingidentificational possibilities in the photographs.These possibilities primarily relate to the scene fea-tured in the images. The scene is distinctly urban,suggesting those who identify with an urban land-scape may be more likely to attribute the devasta-tion to cultural factors. On the other hand, subur-

ban identification creates an impetus to attributethe devastation to uncontrollable natural forces.First, I contrast the features of the urban and sub-urban landscape, and then I describe how theimages primarily portray an urban scene. Finally, Iisolate two different identificational possibilities––drawing on urban or suburban assumptions,through two examples: President Bush’s speech inNew Orleans and the response of hip-hop artists tothe devastation, exemplified by Kanye West’s infa-mous tirade against the President.

The Urban and Suburban in Katrina Imagery

It may be helpful to visualize the suburb as a utopiain the literal sense––a no-place with bland strip-malls, cookie cutter subdivisions, and chain restau-rants.5 The activist-author Rebecca Solnit (2001)prefers the term “postplace,” depicting Silicon Val-ley as the stereotypical “postindustrial, postcom-munal, postrural, and posturban” suburbia (p. 115).

> Eric Gray. © 2005. The Associated Press. Original in color.

The maze serves as Solnit’s (2001) metaphor forsuburbia, a place without center, featuring “myriadclusters of industry and housing, with commutersjamming in every direction” (p. 116). The most distinctive element of the maze is the near-totalevaporation of public spaces into the privatized gridof gated communities and shopping malls. A sub-urb is a gated or secluded cluster of private prop-erty, peopled by commuters and marked by cleanstreets and manicured lawns. Few people, outsideof children, dot the sidewalks and streets of subur-bia; there is a strict emphasis on quiet and soli-tude. In many respects, the spaces for publicassembly are designed out of the neighborhoods.The most likely place to find crowds of people is atthe corner convenience store or the mega-shoppingcenter that recently replaced the last rural holdoutacross the street.

What is most noticeable in the Katrina photos isthe almost complete absence of suburban charac-teristics. The images vividly portray the strikingcontrast between the urban and suburban place. Allthat is present in suburbia is absent and vice-versa. Instead of clean and manicured neighbor-hoods, the images show piling trash and sparseplant life. This is a concrete jungle, with few kidsplaying in their yards but hundreds of personsmilling about the streets. In some pictures, carspass by the stranded victims, but this is not aplace of cars or commuters. Helicopters, buses,boats, and military vehicles are far more common.Glorious chain strip malls are rare while shatteredlocal store fronts are prevalent. This is not a decen-tered, privatized, and isolated place. The Super-dome, featured heavily in the photos, is publicspace and the clear center of the tragedy, offeringsome shelter but little solitude. The Katrina photo-graphs provide a brief glimpse into everyday urbanrealities––public, dirty, concrete, and African-American.

The most disturbing element of the photos is theimage of blackness interacting with whiteness. TheEric Gay photo is illustrative. We see the hundredsof victims and mounds of trash lining the sides ofthe image. We notice the women’s expressions ofanger and disgust. The police, their weapons, andtheir enormous vehicle all add a presence that con-tributes to the desperation of the scene. A photo

shopping of this image in Counterpunch preciselyfingers the source of anxiety produced by the pho-tos (LaBotz, 2005). Credited to a Japanese proverb,the superimposed caption reads, “If all you have isa hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The photobegs the question: “Is the military assisting orinvading?” Some of the images are undoubtedlygovernment agents helping victims. Others areassuredly police officials arresting “looters.” How-ever, so many more offer confusing answers. Wesee people, like the women in Gay’s photograph,yelling at the military officials. And we see animpressive hammer when the situation seems tocall for a velvet glove. President Bush apparentlydisagrees. To a surprisingly quiet chorus of criticism, he used Katrina to call for greater federaland military authority during disasters (“Presidentdiscusses hurricane relief in address to nation,”2005).

The images can reinforce an all-too-familiarmyth––the White forces of good guarding againstthe Black forces of evil––White order versus Blackdisorder. The photographs frequently show a milita-rized zone, reminiscent of many rappers’ violentlyrical portrayals of police confrontations in theghetto. In this image environment, can it be anysurprise that rumors of looters, random acts of vio-lence, and attacks against rescue workers ranwild?6 Despite the official denouncements, manycontinue to believe the exaggerated, hysterical, andracist rumors recently derided by Slavoj Zizek.Zizek (2005) claims the stories serve a fantasy role,and perhaps the fantasy is the suburban utopia.Both Solnit (2001) and Wimsatt (1994) associatethe suburb with security guards and gates. As Sol-nit (2001) argues, “Whatever is inside the wall,past the gate, protected by the guard, is imaginedas some version of paradise, but only paradise solong as its separateness is protected, which meansthat paradise is a violent place” (p. 123). Con-trasted with this paradise, the images can be (andhave been) seen as justifications for suburbia’shighly militarized status.

As a final feature, I must emphasize that most ofthe guards were Anglo whereas most of the vic-tims were African-American. Suburbia is an Angloplace, never more evident than in the face-to-facephotographs. Three features, contrasted from sub-



urban places, stand out up-close. The first is thepredominance of African-American bodies, theancestors of slaves once again afflicted by bothnature and culture. The second are the marks ofpain, from tearful expressions of sorrow or loss toclinched gestures of anger or disgust. Pain isembodied, temporal, in a place, not the happily-ever-after land of utopia suburbia. Just imagine thesmiling faces of home realtor commercials juxta-posed with the crying boy image. Finally, all of thefaces are noisy. They are crying, screaming, wail-ing, and moaning. They pierce through suburbanquietude to express urban commotion. The realitiesof Katrina are written on noisy, pained, African-American faces, featured in a distinctly urbanscene.

The Urban and Suburban: Kanye West versus George W. Bush

Two responses typify the identificational possibili-ties within the urban-suburban division. The first isPresident Bush’s address to the nation on Septem-ber 15th. His speech amply illustrates the suburbanperspective and certainly clarifies his insistencethat Katrina was a natural disaster. Only a moder-ately wealthy spectator can easily say, “Americanshave never left our destiny to the whims of nature,and we will not start now” (“President discusseshurricane,” 2005). Throughout the speech, Bushconstructs an image of a rebuilt Gulf Coast via sub-tle suburban references. He emphasizes home own-ership, longs for the return of playing children, andinsists the steeples will be rebuilt even higher. Onemay think of Solnit’s “myriad clusters of industryand housing” or my own depiction of “cookie-cut-ter strip malls” when Bush declares, “When thestreets are rebuilt, there should be many new busi-nesses, including minority-owned businesses,along those streets” (“President discusses hurri-cane,” 2005). Tellingly, his speech only refers toone specific place in New Orleans––the famousstreetcars on Charles Street. Since I never visitedthe streetcars, I turned to the web for insight (Nel-son, 2005). The streetcars appear to be touristattractions, and, ironically, most of the picturesfeature Anglo patrons guided by an African-Ameri-can driver. Furthermore, the tour passes a statue ofRobert E. Lee and multiple Civil War era mansions.

The mansion of Captain Watson Van Benthuysen, IIwas constructed after the famous “Yankee in Grey”fled Virginia during the war. Van Benthuysen wasrelated to Jefferson Davis and fought for the Con-federacy. He helped found the streetcar line. Forthe suburban tourist, New Orleans was a fun placeto peer at monuments. For instance, shortly afterthe disaster President Bush apparently reminiscedabout his own fun times drinking in New Orleans.For the urban-minded, however, the Presidentappears out of touch.

For our second example, identification with theurban scene may explain why Kanye West droppeda vocal bomb on live television. In perhaps themost sublime moment in recent network history, heaudaciously declared during a benefit telethon,“George Bush doesn’t care about Black people” (deMoraes, 2005). His response was not atypical.7Nearly every hip-hop artist donated time, money, oreffort to the recovery. Innumerable benefit concertswere performed. Local natives such as T.I. andDavid Banner organized trips to New Orleans toassist the rescue. Even Jay-Z and P. Diddy donatedclothing from their fashion lines. MC David Banner(2005), after twice sending his tour bus full ofwater, food, and clothing, lays it out, “How canDavid Banner, a so-called ‘gangsta rapper,’ reactquicker to a crisis than our own government?” (p. 58).

The connection between place and hip-hop is welldocumented, most notably by Murray Forman(2002) in The Hood Comes First. Hip-hop’s historyis one distinctly defined by the emergence of newstyles closely tied to specific locales, such as L.A.gangsta rap, Houston’s screwed and choppedstyle, and Atlanta’s crunk. Through their lyrics,videos, and affiliations, hip-hop artists consistentlyidentify with urban places. The others visually por-trayed in the devastation were, as Wolf Blitzerblubbered, “so poor” and “so Black” (Jackson,2005). The poor, African-American people are hip-hop’s clan; the New Orleans ghetto is hip-hop’splace. The foundation of collective memory, com-mon experiences of devastation in poor African-American communities, provided the grounds foridentification. For the urban artist, the places donot represent some distant and foreign locale sub-ject to the vertiginous whims of nature. These

places recall home. In the context of such memo-ries, Katrina looks increasingly like a cultural disas-ter. Identification with the urban creates the possi-bility of a cultural explanation.

To summarize and return to the modes of seeing,the realistic frame of the documentary mode inher-ently includes both identificational possibilities. Theviewer is positioned to judge the images as realis-tic depictions. Therefore, viewers are most likely toaccept the explanation of the images that mostclosely matches their own perceptions of “reality.”Just as hip-hop artists are likely to see the imagesof police officers struggling against African-Ameri-can people as further evidence of expected racism,many Anglo, conservative viewers readily acceptrumors of looting and random violence as “realis-tic” given the urban scene. The realistic frame cre-ates a tendency to fall back upon (stereo-) typicalassumptions and expectations that appear tomatch the viewer’s own conceptions of reality.This explains why, according to a recent Pew poll,71 percent of African-Americans felt that Katrinashows that racial inequality remains a major prob-lem, whereas 56 percent of Anglos thought thiswas not an important lesson (Kurtz, 2005). Thisexplanation also clarifies the results of audienceanalysis studies of Katrina images focusing onracial cues. One study by Shanto Iyengar andRichard Morin (2006) found that, amongst their primarily Anglo audience, images of the disasterfeaturing Anglo victims evoked a stronger sympa-thetic response in the form of willingness to givemore aid for a longer period of time when com-pared to the same images featuring victims ofother races. Identification is a potent rhetoricalforce, especially in the context of a realistic framethat accompanies the documentary mode of photo-journalism.

Conclusions: Signs of the End

Signs––makeshift signs––best represent theurban/suburban contrast at play in the Katrina pic-tures. Many signs, like the one above, try desper-ately to hold onto the secluded, private, orderly, andAnglo utopia of suburbia––with force if necessary.Other signs list names, signaling people either miss-

ing or seeking help. The policed, public, dilapidated,and concrete urban environment has lost manysouls, but the poor, African-American residentsremain alive. These places, urban and suburban,shape social identification and, hence, response.When positioned as a detached, distant, and exter-nal judge, it becomes all too easy to fall back onthese familiar and stereotypical identifications.

The White/Black, urban/suburban, and nature/cul-ture binaries present in this read of Katrina imagesare not essential, deterministic categories. ManyAnglo and suburban residents reacted swiftly andaltruistically, whereas some African-American andurban inhabitants remained apathetic. Some conser-vatives faulted Bush; some liberals held him blame-less. However, both identificational possibilitiesinhere in a mode of seeing that casts the viewer inthe role of judge, demanding their evaluationthrough the discrimination of identity and differ-ence. The problem is that neither dominant explana-tion goes very far in addressing the underlyingcauses of the disaster. The natural explanationattempts to free the status-quo from guilt. Blamingracist politicians is likewise too easy and too con-spiratorial to advance understanding of such a sin-gular and complex event. As Solnit (2001) con-tends, “Blaming social and environmental problemsentirely on culture can mean overlooking econom-ics, politics, and systems of power” (p. 12).

The important question is how these simplisticevaluations were inspired and shaped. In this vein,three conclusions seem appropriate. First, myanalysis validates Abel’s conclusions about theimportance of the style of images. How the imagesare portrayed, according to what points of viewand perspectives, seems at least as important tounderstanding their social effectivity as what isportrayed in the images. The cultural assumptionsthat photographs represent a “true” or “natural”slice of reality frequently deflect attention from theaesthetic elements of news media images. Theassumptions of neutrality and objectivity need tobe jettisoned in favor of more critical attention tothe style of photojournalism. Objectivity is agrounded stance that structures the modes of see-ing and the concomitant evaluations, regardless ofthe intentions to remain neutral.



If these Katrina images can be generalized, the doc-umentary perspective seems to encourage modesof seeing from the outside, above, and at a dis-tance that articulate to numerous stale culturalbinaries. The positioning of viewers outside, above,and detached from the image-objects constructs ahierarchical and disinterested stance conducive toa judgmental disposition. Views from outside pro-mote a sense of no-place; the suburban spectatorwatches the drama unfold from the distant com-forts of home. Views from a distance and abovesupport an objectifying and moralizing response byeffacing difference, resulting in the Third Worldlabel and a paternalistic refusal of resident partici-pation in their own community redevelopment(Davis, 2005). The wide angles and long distancespaint ambiguous portrayals at best, distancingviewers and victims while often reinforcing theracist fears of suburban America.

The central point here is that the documentarymode tends to turn the people within the imagesinto objects by distancing the viewer from theimage world. Sontag (1977) contends that the aes-thetic distance “seems built into the very experi-ence of looking at photography,” anesthetizing theviewer and creating sentimentalism, never “ethicalor political knowledge” (pp. 20–21, 23–24).Finnegan (2001a) concurs, adding that this distanc-ing is amplified when photographs are seen as art(p. 54). Although developing alternatives is beyondthe scope of this article, a quick look at some alter-natives, particularly those inspired by artistic tech-nique, questions the conclusions of Sontag andFinnegan. Many photographers are challenging theobjectifying documentary mode. Solnit (2001)notes a shift in landscape photography from themodes of documentary realism to modes that con-centrate on the significance of substance.8 Ratherthan seeing substance as neutral matter, thisapproach sees all substance as already havingmeaning. “Substance suggests that meaning isinherent in the world rather than something thatneeds to be inscribed upon it” (Solnit, 2001, pp.52–53). In other words, such modes challenge thedivide between subject and object set up in thedocumentary mode. Rather than portraying sub-stances in the image as objects, they are seen assubjects in their own right. The nature/culture

divide is also questioned, seeing both as sub-stances that speak. Rather than nature being theobject of culture, both act and interact.

Photographically, two techniques challenge thesubject/object divide. In the first, linear perspectiveis abandoned. Instead of peering into the image,substance occupies the entire space of the image,preventing the viewer from looking beyond or intothe image. Background is eliminated in favor offoreground. The image does not construct a spaceinside a window but instead projects substanceinto the viewer’s world. As Solnit puts it, “I amthinking of the many photographs in which foliage,or rubble, or lava, or dirt crowds the foreground ofthe image, producing nature without landscape,without scenery, without liberating prospects, vis-tas, views, or distances––nature in your face” (p.59). Second, photographic modes can position theviewer inside the image. They make visible the tra-ditionally invisible lines of perspective or constructimages that include multiple points of view. So, forinstance, the body of the photographer may extendinto the image, or, the photography may be com-bined with performance or installation pieces thatemphasize the viewer’s positioning and participa-tion. If my analysis is correct, the second tech-nique may be furthered by points of view differentfrom the dominant positions of the documentarymode––from inside the scene, from below andfrontally engaged with the subjects in the image.

In relation to Katrina, a photographic series byDavid Julian entitled “Taken from the Heart: Imagesof Intimate Loss After Katrina” provides an exampleof the first technique.9 The photographs featurepersonal objects such as family portraits, toys,dolls, books, and religious relics, all visibly ruinedby the floodwaters. These personal objects (sub-stances) are shot up close, presented to the viewerrather than placed in a scene. The water-loggedsubstances challenge the division between subjectand object because, in their touching features, theyreveal the subjective personalities behind them, theghostly traces of personal loss. As Julian explains,“Amidst the devastation, I made a series of photo-graphic portraits––not to describe the enormity oftheir loss but rather the wrenching subtlety of it:the tender minutiae. The once-whole personalities

brought into relief by the decomposing detail thatremained. Taken from the empathy in my heart,these photographs record what was taken fromtheir hearts.”

Such images, rather than objectifying the victims,subjectifies them by making these objects speakfor their loss. It brings their loss into the viewer’sworld, asking the viewer not to judge but to feeltheir pain. The documentary mode, portrayinghumans as objects, encourages viewers to rely onfamiliar stereotypes such as African-American peo-ple are ignorant (for not leaving) or violent. Julian’sseries avoids such familiar judgments by creating adifferent set of identifications. The subjectifiedobjects, such as books, toys, and mementos, arefamiliar in the viewer’s own world, further drivinghome the devastation of the loss. Such imagesencourage empathy rather than sympathy, shortcircuiting the drive to objectify the victims and, inturn, speak for them.

Solnit (2001) shows many examples of the secondtechnique in her chapter on the camera (pp.90–108). These examples mix nature and culture,viewer and scene, in ways that problematize theaesthetic distance. One in particular seems rele-vant for the Katrina context. Zig Rising BuffaloJackson compiled a series of photographs, the titleof which perfectly describes the content: IndianPhotographing Tourists Photographing Indians. Theimages question the “consumption and documenta-tion of indigenous cultures by people who seemedto imagine themselves as invisible subjects ratherthan camera-ready objects” (Solnit, 2001, pp.104–105). The pictures expose the invisible posi-tion of the viewer, along with the voyeuristic act ofconsumption. Perhaps an extension can be made tothe Katrina context. A striking feature of the Katrinaimages is the sheer magnitude––thousands of pic-tures, necessitating numerous photographers––while none include reporters. One can imagine hun-gry, thirsty, drowning people being mass-pho-tographed as they cry for help. This is a bit absurd,and maybe reporters performed valiant deeds; butthe documentary mode precludes their appearancein (at least) the images of the disaster. Sontag(1977) believes part of the horror of such photo-graphs stems from this nonintervention, in whichthe photographer chooses the image over life (p.

12). However, Jackson’s photos problematize Son-tag’s pessimism, illustrating how photography canbe used to question the distance between viewerand image. Instead of sentimentalism, a series ofKatrina photographs similar to Jacskon’s wouldproduce an ethical and political knowledge, exposing the common, voyeuristic consumption of disaster.

The deficiencies of a judgmental perspectiveextend beyond this objectification and the relateddangers of speaking for others, leading to my sec-ond conclusion. Here, the problem is not so muchthe stance of judgment but the speed at which itoccurs. The rush to judge contributes to both thestale evaluations of the problem and the spread ofstereotypical assumptions. In the rush to judge,wanton rumors of urban violence spread like wild-fire. In the rush to judge, viewers fall back on com-fortable and familiar assumptions about reality. Inthese realistic images, some see a natural disasterand scoff at liberals who see racist politicians. Oth-ers think they witness a cultural disaster resultingfrom the intentional foot-dragging of the powers-that-be. The rush to judge, fomented by the per-spective of the photographs, inspires a conserva-tive “response-ability.” We respond, we judge,according to our pre-existing political and culturalidentifications. The judgmental perspective createsa recipe for division and stagnation, reproducingthe stale binaries of conservative/liberal, public/private, and cultural/natural that continually limitour political possibilities. In place of the obsessionwith speed, deferral of judgment may be the onlyantidote for a polis that seems to be trenchantlyand tendentiously divided on nearly every politicalissue.

Unfortunately, the news media, in the drive for sen-sationalism and up-to-the-minute reporting, doesnot value delay or deferral. The need for speedleads the media to focus on events rather thanunderlying causes, which may be slow to unfoldand invisible to the naked eye. Solnit concludes,“The media, with their emphasis on eventfulness,have little ability to respond, at best issuing reportson the progression of crises that punctuate thelong ebb of an economy, a culture, an environ-ment” (p. 167). What results is the tendency tooversimplify the event, reducing Katrina to cultural


or natural reasons rather than engaging in a moretime-consuming and complex explanation of theunderlying causes. Solnit connects the drive forspeed with two primary technologies of modernism––the gun and the car. And, as this article illus-trates, both the gun and the car have an intimateconnection with the suburb. Yet, the implication ofthe rush to judge, of the drive for speed, is not yetanother critique of the suburb. What is lost in therush to judge is more complex understandings ofcurrent events.

Some may argue that the camera, since it freezes asnapshot of time, cannot be expected to articulatecomplex causes that are slow-moving and largelyinvisible. However, many artists and activists arenow constructing modes that allow us to see theinvisible, such as the consequences of globalwarming or the elimination of wetlands. Forinstance, Chris Jordan (2006) constructed a photo-graphic series entitled, “In Katrina’s Wake: Portraitsof Loss From an Unnatural Disaster.”10 His photo-graphs feature common and often trivial consumerproducts, such as beads, clothes, plastic bottles,and toys, mixed into mud, water, dirt, weeds, andtrees. The images all suggest the connectionbetween nature and culture, consumption and envi-ronmental devastation.11 They undeniably associ-ate the devastation with the issues of poverty andecological destruction. Similarly, Solnit (2001) dis-cusses the emergence of “salvage photography,which documents disappearing people and places”(p. 167). She seems to preemptively describe Jor-dan’s Katrina photos when she notes the trend forphotographing dirt. Photographing dirt abandonsmapping from above, through the aerial view of thevoyeur god. Cameras “incline downward, to theearth, describing not the inhabitable space but thesurfaces coextensive with the picture plane” (Sol-nit, 2001, p. 159). The distance between viewerand image, camera and earth, is lessened.

While Jordan’s camera does not always aim down-ward, he reproduces a similar logic through similarmodes. The photographs show the results of aprocess that required time, speed, and force to pro-duce––the mixing and melding of nature and cul-ture in water, wind, debris, and dirt. They therebymake visibly slow and usually invisible processes.Focusing on the process of the event, rather than

the outcomes in terms of human victims, allowsdifferent questions to be asked. By showing theecological devastation of Katrina, tied to the literaloverflow of consumer goods, an ecological expla-nation is proffered. Furthermore, the Jordan photos,although offering an evaluation, provide a counter-explanation to the common judgments along thenature versus culture line. Nature and culture areinextricably intertwined, mashed up and mixedtogether. Thus, the photos help to slow-down thedominant evaluations by contrasting them with adifferent perspective.

The dilemmas of rapid judgment point to my thirdconclusion––the desperate need for alternativemodes of seeing. DeLillo’s essay helps outline twocrucial elements of any alternative: the deferral ofjudgment and the presentation of numerous pointsof view. By suspending judgment through the jux-taposition of numerous perspectives on 9/11,DeLillo challenges the rush to evaluate and ascribemeaning to the event. Instead of allowing theviewer to identify with familiar and comfortablepolitical positions, his approach places all suchevaluations, all such points of view, in question.As Abel (2003) puts it, “Instead of providing read-ers with a stable viewpoint––and thus the possi-bility of identification––the confused narrative per-spective calls attention to the impossibility of(identifying with) a clear view of the event” (p.1244). What is needed, then, is for photojournal-ism to adopt a plurality of modes of seeing. DuringKatrina, one photographer, Edward Richards(2006), advances a similar criticism, faulting pho-tojournalists for not venturing out beyond NewOrleans and focusing too much on the humanangle. Richards claims to take the perspective ofan artist, rather than a photojournalist, and hisimages feature flaws in the built environment.Through pictures of collapsed houses and crackedfoundations, he hopes to document the effect onthe built environment as “a great way to get peo-ple to understand the long-term problems thatmost emergency planning ignores.”

Appropriately, Edwards series is entitled, “Katrina:Another View.” Other views, other modes of seeing, are crucial to challenge the objectifyingdocumentary mode and slowdown the rush tojudge. Beyond the familiar culture/nature divide,


more critical explanations for the Katrina disasterdo exist. The photos of Jackson, Jordan, andRichards, along with the new modes detailed bySolnit, provide some preliminary models. Promotingmodes of seeing with the possibilities for a Marx-ist, environmentalist, feminist, or anti-racist expla-nation is the imperative task that remains.

If the fallout from Katrina is any indication, imagin-ing and imaging different points of view may becrucial to overcoming the stereotypical and divisivepolitics of the status quo.

Notes

Due to space limitations, the endnotes for thisarticle can be found at: http://www.vcquarterly.org/jenkins_notes.html

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Eric Jenkins, PhD student in SpeechCommunication at the University ofGeorgia.

Correspondence should be addressed toEric Jenkins, University of Georgia, SpeechCommunication Department, 110 TerrellHall, Athens, GA 30605-3063. E-mail:[email protected]


Visual Comm Quarterly: Seeing Katrina: Perspectives on a Cultural/Natural Disaster

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