After the Flood [Hardcover]

Robert Polidori (Author), Jeff L. Rosenheim (Introduction)

Book Description

Release date: November 21, 2008

In late September 2005, Robert Polidori traveled to New Orleans to record the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina and by the city's broken levees. He found the streets deserted, and, without electricity, eerily dark. The next day he began to photograph, house by house: "All the places I went in, the doors were just open. They had been opened by what I collectively call "the army", of maybe 20 National Guards from New Hampshire, 15 policemen from Minneapolis, 20 firefighters from New York... On maybe half of them or a third of them that I went in, I think that the occupants had been there prior. And some of them did leave certain funeral-like mementos before they left. Maybe right after the waters receded they had the chance to just--to go back to their place and just see, and realize there's nothing worth saving." Amidst all this, Polidori has found something worth saving, has created mementos for those who could not return, documenting the paradoxically beautiful wreckage. In classical terms, he has found ruins. The abandoned houses he recorded were still waterlogged as he entered and as he learned (by trial and error, a process that including finding a dead body) the language of signs and codes in which rescue workers had spray-painted each house's siding. He sees the resulting photographs as the work of a psychological witness, mapping the lives of the absent and deceased through what remains of their belongings and their homes.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With only a brief introduction, photographer Polidori plunges the reader into hurricane Katrina's wake of destruction across the Gulf coast. Oversize photos capture the stark reality: whole neighborhoods under water and later in shambles, and close-ups of sodden bedrooms, mud-scoured kitchens and painterly mold spores. As the more than 500 photos taken between September 2005 and April 2006 progress, destruction eventually gives way to temporary trailers, which appear next to the rubble. The poignant absence of humans and short captions give the collection a powerful austerity, though some viewers may find it relentlessly clinical. (Nov.)
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From the Publisher

From The Washington Post:

I became familiar with the work of photographer Robert Polidori, a 55-year-old native of Montreal, comparatively recently: in the pages of The New Yorker over the past several years as he seemed to raise the bar for architectural photography with every new picture he offered. Polidori's gorgeous large-format color photographs, whether freestanding pieces anchored only by a caption, or the starting point for a long New Yorker article on a building or a place, captivated me for their knowing use of color, light, shadow and space. Polidori's images never seemed to be only about some famous architect's building -- shown off at its best with all angles and perspective correct. Polidori, as others have noted as well, always seemed to incorporate context into his photographs, as if he were as interested in a structure's surroundings as he were about the structure itself. --Frank Van Riper

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Steidl; First Edition edition (November 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 3865212778
• ISBN-13: 978-3865212771
• Product Dimensions: 15 x 2.5 x 11.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,753 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #3 in Books > Travel > United States > Louisiana > General

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Photography as a "process of revelation" February 7, 2007

By Walter O. Koenig

Format:Hardcover

"After the Flood", the latest book by French Canadian Photographer, Robert Polidori, about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is also his largest and most powerful. It is as if his books on Havana and Chernobyl were mere foretastes to this exceptional and moving work, and certainly anyone who has seen these two books came away with a feeling of the power and storytelling that Polidori's images can convey. Polidori has the gift of the detailed eye that can simultaneously give the viewer images of beauty and revulsion in objects and textures. These alone tell the stories. There are no images of people necessary. It is as if he is capturing the tracks and shadows that humanity has left behind. He was able to show this in the urban decay of Havana and of the horrors of the rapid evacuation and subsequent reclamation of nature in Chernobyl. In "After the Flood", he presents us with an almost encyclopedic presentation of the aftermath of the hurricane, flooding, wind, water and mud damage showing the fragility of our cities and the power of nature.

The book contains at least 400 images, which have been carefully arranged. The first images show parts of the city still under water and the receding water. The next group shows the destruction caused by water inside the houses. Furniture has been picked up by the flood and re-arranged and we see the effects of water on different materials and soon notice the tell-tale brown lines on the walls, sometimes over six feet high, showing the high water mark. Succeeding groups of images show the effects of mud, water and wind on buildings and cars that have been tossed around at random like toys. Sometimes cars rest against houses in bizarre angles and sometimes the houses are laying on top of the cars.... Several pages show smaller images of streets where every house was damaged and abandoned. The last set of images shows the clean up. Mounds of refuse in front of houses, temporary trailers, houses being cleaned and repaired. The effect is very powerful as we see how the lives of hundreds of thousands were affected and how many must have lost everything.

The book can only give a taste of the incredible detail the images contain. In a recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art they could be seen as the original prints, each at about 40" by 54". They were taken with a large camera and according to Polidori with no lighting, as there was no electricity available at the time the shots were taken and lighting would have been to cumbersome in cramped and sometimes dangerous conditions. Only time exposures could show the incredible detail, which Polidori refers to as the "process of revelation". He call his work "a constant learning process", and anyone who looks at this book will not only learn, but will also ask questions as to how a disaster of this magnitude was possible, and to our place on this earth and our future here.

Review by Walter O. Koenig Read more ›

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome But Errie Pictures! January 18, 2008

By Sharon E. Mehrtens

Format:Hardcover

I purchased this book for my husband for Christmas. He grew up in the 9th Ward. This book of pictures captures the essence of the damage in the New Orleans area caused by the flood following Hurricane Katrina. The pictures are so real that you can just feel the erriness they capture.They make me think of haunted houses from a movie. But they are real. Real peoples lives and homes.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Robert Polidori: After the Flood March 29, 2009

By Shawn O'keefe

Format:Hardcover

Visually stunning, An epic catalog of destruction. The publication is vacant of people, the landscape broken and void of faces...but humanity and the stories of life are aparent on every page. Beautifully rich photos that capture soft light and harsh contrasting structure alike. The weight of paper and binding compliment the weight of this event. Amazing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning and heartbreaking February 1, 2013

By D. Malin

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

These high quality photos come without captions. As a "viewer" (not "reader") you are left to fill in the details of the family who lived in each dwelling, and the small, everyday items captured in many of the photos. It's too much to look at in one sitting; you will need to put it down until you have the heart to go on, and then pick it up again.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful Photography March 26, 2009

By Kitten J

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this book as a gift for my sister-in-law. The book is beautiful! The photography exquisite...I am so happy I bought this book for her.

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning photos of a tragic event November 28, 2012

By Kristen L. Henschen

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Robert's photos are AMAZING. I loved the photos when I first saw some of them on display at the Modern Museum of Art in NYC. When I realized he made a book of them, I wanted to own it. I was so moved by the images, particularly one that I saw at the show. I was shocked that the image that I remember most was not in the book. There are likely a thousand awesome photos in the book, but not the one I remember from the exhibition.

4.0 out of 5 stars Great subjects, great photographs, poor reproductions December 16, 2011

By kwirky

Format:Hardcover

The work is great, the subject matter is splendid but the reproduction quality is a little below average. This book would have 5/5 stars if it didn't have the large lithographic dots that mar the sharpness of the images. The resolution is pretty low and noisy which is a shame because they're reproductions of huge 5x7 sheets of film.

I still recommend the book.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Katrina as Art March 13, 2007

By R. J MOSS

Format:Hardcover

Silt has rendered a wonderous, pale beauty to the interior carnage of New Orlean's homes. Polidoris's project, a subsequentc 'invasion' of these domains, places on public record their devastation. It's a case of supreme technical skill, enshrining an ephemeral disaster. The denizens have hastily evacuated, leaving Polidori to rut in the trough of the city's ruin. Here, in one haunting page after another, the tidal muds that have rudely piled cars beneath houses in tragically asymmetrical congress, are made warm and close. It's relentless. You can almost handle the poignant detritus. We're led first through the haunting streets of uprooted poles, trees and weathereboards, of twisted metal. Then the rooms, the hearts and minds of individual suffering. Not snap-happy journalistic sensationalism, but hypnotically constructed images whose frozen testimonies have more permanence than the rented edifices they record. Polidori knows where to stand amidst the wreckage: his camera an unerring eye delving near and distantly with disturbing clarity. It is the very silence that entrances with singular eloquence and gravity. The wind and tide have subsided, but the havock endures in sulphurous washes and surreal configuration which 1000 installation artists would greet as a great funereal statement that transcends collective imagination. In a word, awesome, the currency of the Sublime. Polidori has wrested art from tragedy. Any of its 200 plus large format pages can be poured over for aesthetic reward, the more to dwell on vagabond Nature. Brilliant! For more on art visit>rodmoss.com