Quiet Zone: (A sign in an abandoned school library in New Orleans)

208 QUIET ZONE (A sign in an abandoned school library in New Orleans) I have a standard lecture I give in photography classes called “All Photos Lie.” The conceit is that any photographic image can only be a poor approximation of “reality,” regardless of how one defines this. There are many reasons why this is true, from the trivial (photographs are two-dimensional) to the more technical. But one point I always like to make is that our impression of a place is informed by all of our senses. Vision is, of course, important. But smell, sounds, and even taste will contribute to a greater or lesser extent. The abandoned homes and schools I photographed in New Orleans six months after Katrina had a smell that I, a visual person, don’t have the words to describe. Dampness, heat, mold, and rot had worked on the things that surround a life—clothes, books, possessions of all sorts—and reduced them to testaments of rapid abandonment and stunning loss. Grit, composed of things it was best not to dwell on, coated my mouth. And there was silence—made all the more apparent by an occasional breeze and the crunch of debris underfoot. The only sound I remember over two weeks of photographing was the cry of a rooster still marking time in the Lower Ninth. So how does one begin to convey the enormity of this? Gary Copeland Lilley’s work engages all my senses. I think that’s what poetry’s for. Barry Goldstein Ecotone: reimagining place Previous page: Lower 9th Ward, March 2006. Lower 9th Ward, March 2006. Ecotone: reimagining place 212 Lower 9th Ward, March 2006. Ecotone: reimagining place 214 Valena C. Jones Elementary School, 7th Ward, July 2006. Ecotone: reimagining place Previous page (right): Joseph A. Hardin Elementary School, Lower 9th Ward, March 2006. (left): Valena C. Jones Elementary School, 7th Ward, July 2006. Thomas Alva Edison Elementary School, Lower 9th Ward, July 2006. Ecotone: reimagining place 220 New Orleans East, March 2006. Ecotone: reimagining place 222 New Orleans East, March 2006. Next page: Lower 9th Ward, July 2006. ...