Joshua Mann Pailet
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPROWELL: As a fine art photographer, you have an eye that is different from that of the average person. And you see what we oftentimes do not see as general viewers. Will you talk about what you saw of the City of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and what it meant to you?
PAILET: I do have a gift with photographic vision. I stayed throughout the storm. I was well prepared and was prepared to stay for many weeks thereafter. I began photographing right away. I used a bicycle to get around, and I covered pretty much the high ground all the way up to the edges of the flood, but did not go very far into actual high floodwaters.
What did I see? I saw was the town working together to try to cope and survive. I saw a sort of beauty within the destruction. If you look at my portfolio of photographs that I produced about Katrina, that's probably what you would see. I saw both people and landscape, but in a positive way.
ROWELL: Would you comment further on what you're calling "beauty within the destruction"?
PAILET: Well, it's a little difficult to verbalize. It's easier to show photographs, but there's always beauty within destruction, and it's just about the way I see the world and what catches my eye: the way light hits things or the way people react to circumstances or to each other, or how a smile pops up instead of a frown.
ROWELL: What did you see in New Orleans that we, who are outsiders, did not see as we watched our television screens and read our newspapers? And were you able to capture on film (or through digital image) what you saw?
PAILET: I was downtown, and I was appalled at the lack of water coming in. What I saw was a complete failure to bring in any outside provisions for the people who were still here. This went on for five or six days [End Page 1185]
ROWELL: What do you call downtown here in New Orleans?
PAILET: French Quarter, Central Business District, Saint Charles Avenue, Audubon Park, Marigny, Bywater, along the river.
ROWELL: So you didn't see the Lower Ninth Ward?
PAILET: Not in those first five days. It was inaccessible. And at that time it wasn't in my radar to go there. I still was taking care of my gallery, my friends next to my houses, and the older people I knew. By then the day would be gone, and it would be nighttime. There was a fairly busy day every day. But I managed to photograph all throughout the process.
ROWELL: I assume the water did not affect this gallery at all.
PAILET: No. It was affected by the water.
ROWELL: Were there other kinds of problems at night in the city? Some of the people I have spoken to here have told me that there was danger in the streets. There were no lights. There was no police protection. Did you have problems protecting the gallery and your home shortly after the devastation?
PAILET: It is true that it was very dark, and the city was completely quiet. The city was without police or fire protection. I personally did not feel threatened, but I could feel the edge. At night I just stayed put in the French Quarter. I didn't find—in my field of vision—the type of things you might be implying. Will you be more specific?
ROWELL: The news media reported instances of looting and random shooting. We got the impression from the news that homes were threatened, that burglars were all over the city. Did you witness any of this?
PAILET: No, I did not. The only break-ins I witnessed were into drugstores and food stores, and a number of t-shirt, shoe, and sporting good shops on Canal Street, which I noticed when I left here...
