Product Description

When Hurricane Katrina approached New Orleans, photographer David G. Spielman decided to stay and weather the storm, assisting his Uptown neighbors, the siters of the order of Poor Clare. Katrina passed, and as the flood waters filled the city, the scope of the devastation only gradually dawned on Spielman, who was cut off from outside communication. Faced with the greatest personal and professional challenge of his life, he determined to document the scene unfolding around him. He managed to secure a generator to power his laptop computer, and in the days, weeks, and months after August 29, 2005, he transmitted emails to hundreds of friends and clients and cautiously traversed the city taking photographs. Katrinaville Chronicles gathers Spielman’s images and observations, relating his unique perspective on and experience of a historic catastrophe. Spielman never expected his emails to survive beyond the day he sent them. But his descriptions of what he was seeing, hearing, smelling, thinking, feeling, and fearing in postKatrina New Orleans were forwarded again and again, even around the globe. They reveal the best and worst in Spielman: a Samaritan who becomes caretaker of the sisters’ monastery, as well as a stressed gent who frets about the lack of starched shirts and a decent cup of coffee. He rants about political leaders and voices a deep concern for his city's future. He tells of feeling overwhelmed, at a loss for words, unable to capture on film the individual tragedies manifested in home after destroyed home, many marked by death. His arresting blackandwhite photographs record the details of the disaster on both a grand and an intimate scale, at times recalling works by Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Henri CartierBresson. What emerges above all is Spielman’s buoyant spirit. Living without electricity or running water and existing on peanut butter sandwiches, he nonetheless is able to appreciate the complete quiet and unadulterated starlight in a surreal city without power. He encourages his fellow citizens to see Katrina as an opportunity for improving upon the past and making a better tomorrow. Katrinaville Chronicles is Spielman’s inthemoment, very human response to and stunning visual record of—as he puts it—"a thing so huge I still can’t get my mind around it." AUTHOR BIO: David G. Spielman is a fine art, commercial, and journalistic photographer whose images have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the London Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, Forbes, and Architectural Digest. Southern Writers was his first book. His assignments have taken him to six continents, and his photographs are held in numerous private collections and museums. He lives in New Orleans.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #486489 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 131 pages

About the Author
David G. Spielman is a fine art, commercial, and journalistic photographer whose images have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers, including the London Times, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Time, Newsweek, Forbes, and Architectural Digest. Southern Writers was his first book. His assignments have taken him to six continents, and his photographs are held in numerous private collections and museums. He lives in New Orleans.

Customer Reviews

Katrina Soup
Two years ago today I was in New Orleans, gutting houses for Habitat for Humanity. My son, my brother, his son and I were there for several weeks, and got to see first-hand what the aftermath of Katrina was like. It's similar to childbirth: until you've experienced it first hand, the full impact doesn't really hit you. I had seen the photos and the footage, but as we drove through the 9th Ward on the day we first arrived, I realized NOTHING had prepared me for what I was seeing in front of me, that day, June 18, 2006. It didn't seem as if we were still in America - it was more like being in the aftermath of a war zone in some other country. The wide streets, empty and silent; the school-bus-sized piles of what had been the entire contents of a family's home; the stench that lay over everything (this came from the refrigerators stuffed with food and rotten water: "Katrina Soup", my brother called it). And in the trees that were still upright, if you looked closely, you could see where strands of Mardi Gras beads still hung from people having thrown them up there, in celebration, over a year and a half ago. The book was so brilliant - his photographs bring it all back to me in vivid relief. The one that affected me the most was the one of the shrimp boat sitting at the end of the street. My brother took me to see that same boat the first night we were in New Orleans, and I visited it several times after. And his descriptions - !! The heat, the isolation, the fear, and the adventure of what he was living. God bless his friends and family for saving his e-mails and urging him to publish them. This book is an absolute treasure.

Excellent Record of an Epic Disaster
David Spielman's book is both awesome and emotionally jarring. It's as close as one can come to experience Katrina without having been there.

Accurate, riveting, revealing
I evacuated, returned to my own Uptown neighborhood eight weeks after the storm... and after just now looking at David's book I'm seeing it all over again. And, I'm seeing things I've never seen (Six Flags under 20+ feet of water). The emails walk you through what it was really like, the photos are reminders of what happened to this American city. All Americans should see these unique photos, this unique perspective, as we continue to try and fathom what happened here. This is the perfect presentation. I don't live in New Orleans anymore for a million reasons... but these photos take me 'home' again, and this is a book you will show your friends for years to come.