Dave Anderson, a Little Rock-based photographer who spoke at the Clinton School last week about his new book chronicling a New Orleans neighborhood’s post-Katrina recovery, gets a glowing feature in today’s New York Times.
The book, “One Block: A New Orleans Neighborhood Rebuilds,” is a photo essay following a single block in the aftermath of the devastating hurricane.
Below is an excerpt the Times piece.
After the disaster, Mr. Anderson, who lives in Arkansas, brought his camera and hi humane photographic approach to New Orleans. In such a shattered place, he was initially reluctant to do the kind of portraiture that is his specialty. “I didn’t feel right taking pictures of people,” he said. “It was such a brutal time.”
He decided instead on a project that would take in the place and its people, in details small and large.
Mr. Anderson focused on a block in the Lower Ninth Ward, the largely poor neighborhood that suffered some of the most catastrophic flooding in the city. At first, he said, he resisted shooting in that area “because it was so overexposed.”But he found himself falling in love with a block bounded by Chartres Street, Douglas Street, Caffin Avenue and — yes — Flood Street. It was a racially mixed neighborhood with lovely homes and not-so-lovely ones. “It seemed to represent ethnically what New Orleans was like, to a degree,” Mr. Anderson said. “And they hadn’t gotten so much water that they had absolutely no chance of making it back. There was a chance the neighborhood could recover — but it certainly wasn’t a sure thing.”