Let’s continue our remembrance of New Orleans and the victims of Hurricane Katrina...On my Video Bar I’ve pulled up some YouTube clips by “bnvn1,” a.k.a. Douglas Kiesling, a.k.a. The Weather Paparazzi. He shot video in New Orleans from August 28 through August 30, 2005 – before, during and after Katrina’s landfall.
Unfortunately, Mr. Kiesling doesn’t allow embedding. To watch these videos, you’ll have to double-click through to YouTube.com.
Even with the Weather Paparazzi logo watermarked across the screen, there’s something unsettling about this raw footage. Including the fact that Kiesling, from Minnesota, traveled to New Orleans to document the destruction like some thrill-seeking (and money-chasing) ghoul. I guess that’s what a professional storm-chaser has to be. But still...
Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteWhat's even more ghoulish was that there were actual *tour operators* running organized tours where tourists could ride around New Orleans in the safety and comfort of their air conditioned bus, taking pictures of poor schmoes dealing with the utter destruction of their lives.
Kinda reminded me of the Battle of Bull Run (I believe) where residents of Washington D.C. had picnic parties to watch the battle.
i.e. in dire need of a serious bitch-slap.
I'm afraid I can confess to one such ghoulish exercise. After the O.J. Simpson trial, I used to take all my out-of-town guests to Mezzaluna to eat. (That's the restaurant where Ron Goldman worked.)
ReplyDeleteMezzaluna eventually went out of business. It was a neighborhood spot that suddenly was packed with Simpson tourists, which chased away the neighborhood folks. When the ghouls stopped coming, the neighborhoood folks never did return.
Well, Yes I'm a Freelance videographer "Weather Paparazzi" but I do this work for a living. I'm there to document what happens. Sometimes nothing happens and sometimes hell on earth happens. I don't make the weather, I just record it. As for calling it "Ghoulish", what about all the news networks that hype the shit out of the news even if the story is nothing in the first place. How many news crews blew off the RNC to cover Hurricane Gustav that turned out to be nothing for NOLA?
ReplyDelete