Holding Out and Hanging On: Surviving Hurricane Katrina » (New Edition)

Thomas Neff is Professor of Art at Louisiana State University and is the coeditor of Teaching Photography. He has traveled extensively in Italy, Ireland, China, and Japan, producing bodies of work that focus on people, landscape, and architecture.

Words cannot adequately convey the human dimension of the devastation wreaked on New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Thomas Neff’s photographs can. A volunteer in the city in the early days after the flood, this Baton Rouge photographer witnessed firsthand the confusion and suffering, as well as the persistence and strength, of those who stuck it out. The friendship he extended residents enabled him to approach his subjects from a uniquely personal perspective. Readers will meet people from all walks of life who are exhausted by grief and shock but who are determined to hold on to their culture and their city. Neff’s gripping black-and-white images and poignant narratives show individuals reorganizing their lives, trying to maintain their individuality, and even enriching their souls as they help one another. These are the stories that New Orleans citizens told each other and photographs that show the city as it knows itself.