I see a crowd of black people packed together against a grey background, and only their heads can be seen. In front of them are the heads of two army soldiers. The centerpiece of the image is a crying baby being held up in the air above the crowd. Well, since this a Hurrican Katrina picture, the season is summer. This is a candid picture, seeing as everyone looks way too miserable to be posing.
The dark background on which the picture was taken gives the picture a sort of depressive tone. And to top it off, the crying baby pulls on the hearstrings. When I see the crowd of people, it makes me think of panic and misery. When I see the crying baby, it makes me think about suffering. And seeing the soldiers, they kind of look indifferent, and that they're not doing much to help. It all kind of gives me a feeling of helplessness, like there's nothing I can do but watch them suffer.
What I know about Hurricane Katrina from the news was that it was one heck of a hurricane. In summer 2005, the hurricane flooded and destroyed a big portion of New Orleans, Louisiana, and the Gulf Coast. Citizens were stranded and in need of help, and the US took their sweet time getting there. Citizens in our own country had horrible living conditions, with dirty clothes, no home, and no food or clean drinking water. They were considered "refugees", which I thought was kind of an insult. As a result, the government got major criticism because of their slow response to the disaster. It was a wake up call to the United States that they need to be better prepared to handle crises within our own country.
The photographer's intention was to make us empathize what the victims of the hurricane were feeling, by setting the mood with dark color tones, and the crying baby. I'm pretty sure that other people would react to the picture the same way I did, which was helpless, and not able to do anything about it. The publicity of this photo caused the United States to put some more pep in their step in helping the hurricane victims, and has spawned many volunteers, average people like myself, who were donating goods, with some actually going down there and lending a helping hand.
