6 months later, 100 days away

I returned from my trip to New Orleans on Tuesday night, reluctantly of course, I wish I could stay for Mardi Gras.

This will be my first of many entries on the trip and my observations in Nola and the Gulf Coast. Its a bit surreal being back to functioning street lights and solid buildings. I have yet to find the exact words for the experience of seeing the destruction, but "unbelievable" has been the foremost choice thus far.

6 months after Katrina, I stood where the levees broke in the 9th ward, where the cities of Biloxi and Gulfport where smashed, where the 17th St. Canal levee broke, and overall, it seems that not much has changed.

In the lower 9th, one can see the path of the water, strewn with debris where houses should be, only foundations and concrete slabs remaining, some houses in the middle of streets, on top of others, on top of cars, some in a million pieces scattered who knows where. My film will be back next week, so until then I only have digital images to offer, along with video if I can make it work on the site. As I stood in the midst of what is hard to describe, I realized that all the photos in the world may not adequately express what it is like. I encourage anyone to go visit New Orleans, enjoy the functioning parts of the city and pump money back in, and see the destruction and the awesome force of nature, see a landscape that we as a culture cannot relate to, with no reference points for the immense destruction.

This post has now been sitting through a few revisions, I'm losing a sense of what I'd like to say. Having now seen the destruction and realized the enormous impact it has on our country, it seems to me that it would be very clear to all involved that rebuilding needs to happen and quickly. Hurricane season is 100 or so days away. There is no excuse whatsoever not to have our best and brightest working every day from now until then to rebuild the levees (not just to a pre-Katrina strength, but stronger), to clean up what is destroyed, and to begin the process of getting people back to their home. Unfortunately, I imagine the forces we can mobilize, such as the Navy Seabees and Army Corp of Engineers, are pretty busy with Iraq, not to mention that large companies that can handle mass reconstruction are also stuck in that quagmire. I propose we stop at nothing to rebuild this major American city, it is our responsibility as part of the grand project we are citizens of. If this were any other major city, it seems that we would not be sitting in the mud 6 months later and things would have been in place, money allocated, etc. America needs to not forget what has happened and what needs to happen to bring our fellow citizens back to an acceptable standard of life.

Here are a few digital stills to give an impression of the devastation. I'll post more in the coming week, with more commentary as I sort through it all.

Yet one more way to get here...

By going to canyoupicturethat.com, or canupicturethat.com, you can get to my site. and now, by going to http://www.mattachhammer.com, you can also get here.

PS Any readers know how to make this page show up in the frames of the homepage by a direct link? That is, by typing in http://www.blog.canyoupicturethat.com , it comes up with just the blog page...any ideas on how to make it come up nested in the homepage?

New Orleans...free photos of property or houses for Katrina Evacuees in DC

I am traveling to New Orleans this coming weekend to visit a friend and photograph the area, document what most of the country has forgotten about, etc.

I would like to offer up the service of taking digital photographs of houses or property of Katrina evacuees who have not yet had a chance for someone to do this. Free, of course. If you read this, and know evacuees in the DC area (preferably), let them know to contact me and I'll arrange it and do the best I can. If the response is too overwhelming, it may not be possible to get all, hence the preference for DC based evacuees, but I'm not about to turn anyone down because they're not in the DC area.

On fraud...

Many of us, including artists, are becoming more familiar with the Nigerian and other foreign country money scams. I played with one of them until I actually got sent a check! A clear forgery of course, but it shows a level of sophistication one would not think is there.Most of these scams have you cash a check with more money than needed, and then wire that money on. By the time the bank (I'll get to them later) figures out is fraud, your money is gone and so is your product or service, etc. and there's not much to do about it.

Here's my case to illustrate this, I hope it helps for those who are looking into these things and getting offers on websites or through email for sales:

-The original message was simple enough, it came through in email from the account linked on my site, here it is:
"Hello and gooday i would like to purchase your artwork because i am really interested in your works so please i need the following informations
1)would you accept a cashiers check drawn in us funds as means of payment alternatively it would be so nice if you could accept a mastercard or visa card charge directly other than paypal because i have tried paypal before and they do not have an account with my region
2)How much would shipping cost to Lagos Nigeria 3)what is your shipment method because i would prefer DHL so thanks a lot and look forward to hearing from you soonest
regards
danny (davison)"

ok. Sure, Danny wants to buy my photos, why not. So I email him, strictly saying I will accept only paypal or other upfront and legit money. This turns into a huge debate, him getting angry with me for not trusting him...really! Eventually, he places an order, and also wants me to get 5 razor phones for him and his family. right... so I play along. Send me the check, he says its on its way. Somehow, two months later, the check actually arrives, seen here, with the envelope it came in and the US address label on the back tracking it to Fitchburg Massachussetts with a name of Deschene which is cut off in my scan:

This looks real at first, but it is printed on thin paper and the watermark is nowhere near authentic. However, given the complete incompetence I encountered at PNC Bank when asking them if it was fraudulent...went something like this: After I had gone to Bank of America, my bank, they agreed, said it was most likely fake, take it to PNC right next door, the Corcoran branch, this is right across from the Treasury building. I go to PNC and say, "Hi, I want to see if this check is fraudulent, it was made out to me, I am not attempting to cash it." Teller: "What do you mean by fraudulent?" Ummm....yes ladies and gentlemen, she was serious, she, a bank teller, did not know what the word fraudulent meant! I had to define it for her, fake, false, forgery, etc. Unbelievable! So, the fiasco ensued, they had no clue what to do, PNC does not have a fraud team, they are a worthless institution if you ask me. Anyway, I left disgruntled and took them a copy back the next day. From what I have seen so far, the Secret Service is the only watchdog group or govt agency with their act together on fraud, so I will send them the original check and emails and all to see if it helps.

Anyway, this should be a lesson for any of us with things on the web. If someone wants to buy something from a foreign country, especially Nigeria, and the email fits the format of being poorly spelled, all caps, or the like, with an offer to pay by check or cashier's check, be extremely cautious. Delete it, or, for fun, as many people have, play with the person and keep telling them you sent the items to different post offices so they have to go find them. Waste their time and lead them on, they deserve it. The good news is I didn't get scammed and lose money, but many people do and the banks and such are not paying attention!
For more on this, and similar stories, etc.:
http://www.fraudaid.com/ScamSpeak/Nigerian/counterfeit_check_fraud/ (not sure about this org, but has info on it.
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009KXI&tag=
photo.net thread on this subject
http://artdc.org/forum/index.php?topic=1978.0
artdc.org thread

That's my photo!

Or maybe not, but its an interesting story...I was at the lab tonight picking up recent prints, and as the techs and I were looking at them, one of them says...that photo was on the magazine, won the contest! Oh...
She was referring to this:










Apparently, someone else found this door fascinating, though being humble, or not, I must admit I'm happier with my shots of it, seen below and on my New Mexico page:











What a coincidence. I wonder what the prize was, other than it being on the front cover of the magazine! Arg. I even had one framed up like that that didn't make my cut:

This is funny...

I've wanted to put these images on the web for so long, or send them to Comedy Central or something. Here's what happens..put a couple 20 something housemates in the same room and have the following image come up on the TV. No one really wants to laugh, it was before the space shuttle made it back safely, but you can't help but lok at this and feel sorry for the poor intern who got the model for the set and is now sitting in the audience in shame as he or she looks up and sees:














I don't think I need to say anymore.

Continuing a project...

The blog has seen little of me in the past few days, I've been out of town for some much needed fun, and also some shooting! Finally got out in the field (battlefields in Gettysburg, to be literal) and made use of the 4x5, also got my friend and fellow photographer Jeremy hooked on Medium and large format.

I head to New Orleans in 2 weeks to continue the shooting I started there the last few trips in the last 2 years. Most of my shooting in the pas focused in the French Quarter and various other areas of the city. This time I am hoping to document some of the destruction, while also searching for some signs of hope, though I'm a little worried I may have a hard time finding that. I am also planning a drive along the Gulf Coast to other affected areas. For some of this, the new large format is going to be an incredible asset. I will probably be the only, or perhaps one of a few photographers documenting what remains in film and more specifically large format...