Views From Versailles To Post-Katrina New Orleans

Robert Polidori uses a large-format camera to take pictures of anything from the French palace of Versailles to the destruction that Hurricane Katrina caused or the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. In his photographs there aren’t any people present, which has led to him being criticized. I think that his photographs aestheticize the settings of catastrophe and that they are powerful statements of unique events. The absence of people in his photographs make the image haunting and it makes the photograph seem cold and lonely in my opinion. But the photographs can also be powerful statements of unique events, they show the aftermath of a disaster and the people that went through that experience.