Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
No doubt you’ve seen some images from the earthquake and tsunami like these here from the NY Times/AP. The devastation in Japan is horrific, as is the state of affairs, the deaths, missing people, damaged lives and immeasurable property damage. Unthinkable sadness.
The photos too are extremely powerful. In kind, in their quietness, in scale. In short, they are completely surreal. The ability for a photograph to tell a story in a single moment is undeniable. This is journalism, but were it not for a natural disaster, the subject matter of the images reads like a fine art of destruction.
The world’s head and heart are with you Japan. More shocking and surreal images captured by AP reporters in Japan after the jump.
Kyodo News, via Associated Press
Kyodo/Reuters
Kyodo News, via Reuters
Kyodo News, via Associated Press
To see a dozen more of these images, visit the Asia Pacific photo gallery here at the NY Times.
[Images from AP and NYTimes via the respected agencies cited below each image. Post inspired by Rachel’s over at A Photography Blog. Text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation to Japan tsunami relief or click here.]
That is an insane gallery of images. I couldn’t even imagine… My prayers go out to them.
No misunderstanding. It’s not those photos people were talking about. We know the purpose/importance of those photos and the quality. It’s good. It’s just his choice of words. Fine art.
I think Chase makes a valid point here that a few people have perhaps misunderstood. If some guy just rocked up and took a crappy snapshot of the destruction without paying attention to the subject matter or composition it probably wouldn’t elicit quite as strong a response from the viewer as these well shot photographs. In this way the art of photography does convey the scale of the destruction and horror facing the Japanese people.
Japan is in DANGER and it is really really surprising of how big these two distaters had occured. HOPEFULLY everything will come ack to normal in a WHILE … RIP to all those who had died and GOOD LUCK to all those who are suffering … keep your heads up for the future … =]
Japan is in DANGER and it is really really surprising of how big these two distaters had occured. HOPEFULLY everything will come back to normal in a WHILE … RIP to all those who had died and GOOD LUCK to all those who are suffering … keep your heads staright up all the way for the future … =]
Thanks for posting this, I used this as my discussion starter with my high school students. We talked about how an image set like this says so much, and conveys a lot of information. How many words would it take to say what this image set says. A lot.