philly

National Geographic News reports on some of the improvements in New Orleans in the last year through then and now photos mainly by Getty Images photog Mario Tama. It's not all bad news down there. But I'm not gonna say that it's even a majority of good news, it looks mostly bad. But there are some spots here and there which seem to be starting to move towards some sort of normalcy, or as 'normal' as you could be after your entire life is washed away and your government, for the most part, completely ignores you unless you're some Republican dude named Rockey.

Looking at the before and after photos which are just about the same perspective, I couldn't help but think of how digital photography can help in recreating images later on in time for more or less exactly the same except for the time lapse. I'm gonna assume that the Getty Images photogs were all using digital cameras. All the EXIF information is stored within each shot. The camera model, the lens, the focal length, the ISO, the shutter speed, the aperture, the optimization settings and if you have a GPS attachment [which many many photojournalists use], the exact coordinates! You can head back to the same spot, take out the appropriate camera body and lens combo, dial in the settings and presto, you've got your before/after shot perfectly. Technology… it's grand.

And Matt points to the 1115.org blog and corresponding flickr stream. Matt Cohen of 1115 is down in New Orleans investigating how much has changed as far as he can see. His first post titled "Unimaginable" leads with a photograph of a piece of stickerart which reads There is no real intention to rebuild New Orleans. And follows with three short sentences:

You have no idea how bad it is down here.

The President plans to swagger down here on Monday to brag about how he’s keeping his promise to the people of New Orleans.

I'm going to bring you reality.

It's gonna be an interesting read and the photography is really nice as well.

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