I've come across this by way of Justin James Reed's blog. Robert Polidori's photos of the aftermath of Katrina are being used in an awareness campaign.

About smoking.

And, what's worse, there's no context for the photos. So Polidori photographed the interiors of homes lost to a very particular tragedy, in a very particular context, and saw fit to let them be used in an anti-smoking campaign. In response to Alec Soth asking "Where are all the people?", Polidori had these words to say in his defense (all sic):

The city was evacuated.
What am I suppose to do?
Track down some owner and fly him him or her in and pose them like stick figure props in front of their house?
By this method maybe I would of taken 10 photos in the cummululative 3 months I spent there.
And besides, and more to the point, that is not my intention.
What more are you really going to learn from having a person there?
My belief is that you should take stills of what doesn’t seem to move, and take movies or videos of does.
It’s my opinion that people come off better in movies.
It is my belief that you have a lot more indices of personal values by looking at what individuals place in their living interiors than by looking at their face.
That is why I photograph interiors.
It’s their self-intented super-go that interests me.
It’s a look at their soul life.

If that's the case - if these photos are a look at the "soul life" of those who lost most or everything to a flood - then shouldn't they be treated a little more carefully, or with a little more respect to their context? If these living interiors are "indices of personal values," is it fair to associate the damage with poor health and living choices?

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