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

Abstract

This article examines a series of photographs from The Washington Post covering Hurricane Katrina. I argue that the modes of seeing in the images structure the possible meanings of the event. These images represent the documentary mode which, in pursuit of “objectivity,” positions the viewer in a stance of detachment and judgment. In the rush to judge, familiar identifications of left/right, culture/nature, and public/private, surface as the primary grounds for evaluation. In the photographs, the urban characteristics of the scene direct the viewers' identification. The various judgments diverge based on how the viewer identifies with this urban scene. In short, I argue that how we saw Katrina influences how the disaster was interpreted. The stale interpretations, from cultural to natural, are both equally structured into the photographs. Producing different evaluations, from anti-globalization to the anti-racist, requires interrogation of the dominant news-media mode and the imaging of new points of view.