Hurricane Katrina in Black and White
A decade after Hurricane Katrina, one photographer is showing the pictures she took right after the disaster at Hancock County libraries.
With the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina closing in, LaChina Tillman Ozment feels it’s the right time to show some of the images she captured during and after the storm. “I just felt that I wanted to share with our community what we have survived and how we just became unified,” said Ozment, “you know it wasn’t about race, color, religion. We all came together and we survived such a horrific event in our lives, and we kept moving.”
Executive Director of Hancock County Library System Courtney Thomas said, “I’m a Bay St. Louis native too. I grew up here, so when I see these pictures these are places that I grew up seeing almost every day. And many of them I don’t see anymore because they’re gone, so it’s a bitter sweet memory to be able to look at them.”
The display cases do not only have photographs from Hurricane Katrina but also personal artifacts that the photographer brought with her. “It actually did not hurt when I was taking them, I was just seeing something that I’ve never seen before and it’s just, like, how do you explain this later or how do you talk to you kids. It’s kind of like my mom and them trying to tells us about Camille, what makes it real to us, it’s the pictures that they had,” said Ozment.
LaChina also tells News 25 there’s a special reason why all of the photographs are in black and white. “If all of these pictures would have been in color, you really would miss a lot. You’d kind of get the visual and see something but you won’t be able to see the detail of a ball that’s flattened on the ground or how the fence, or the railroad, really has twist and turned from it. So to me, it just makes it even more powerful in black and white because we pay attention.”
This exhibit is happening today through August 31st at Bay St. Louis and Waveland Public libraries.
With the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina closing in, LaChina Tillman Ozment feels it’s the right time to show some of the images she captured during and after the storm. “I just felt that I wanted to share with our community what we have survived and how we just became unified,” said Ozment, “you know it wasn’t about race, color, religion. We all came together and we survived such a horrific event in our lives, and we kept moving.”
Executive Director of Hancock County Library System Courtney Thomas said, “I’m a Bay St. Louis native too. I grew up here, so when I see these pictures these are places that I grew up seeing almost every day. And many of them I don’t see anymore because they’re gone, so it’s a bitter sweet memory to be able to look at them.”
The display cases do not only have photographs from Hurricane Katrina but also personal artifacts that the photographer brought with her. “It actually did not hurt when I was taking them, I was just seeing something that I’ve never seen before and it’s just, like, how do you explain this later or how do you talk to you kids. It’s kind of like my mom and them trying to tells us about Camille, what makes it real to us, it’s the pictures that they had,” said Ozment.
LaChina also tells News 25 there’s a special reason why all of the photographs are in black and white. “If all of these pictures would have been in color, you really would miss a lot. You’d kind of get the visual and see something but you won’t be able to see the detail of a ball that’s flattened on the ground or how the fence, or the railroad, really has twist and turned from it. So to me, it just makes it even more powerful in black and white because we pay attention.”
This exhibit is happening today through August 31st at Bay St. Louis and Waveland Public libraries.
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