December 14, 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School | 27 killed, 2 injured
Six staff members and 20 children died in the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting. The assailant also killed his mother. The school was torn down and replaced. Nothing was saved from the old school, not even the flagpole.
Quiet Photos of Deadly Scenes
Lynn Johnson revisits places where violent acts were committed and invites us to reflect on a sobering reality.
Lynn Johnson’s photographs of places where violence was committed are meant to be viewed as neutral places, photographed in black and white to present a rawness, just the facts. “These are the places where people died,” she says. “It is important not to charge them with any emotion or attitude.”
Yet, the impact of seeing the spray-painted outlines on a Texas road marking where dragging victim James Byrd’s body was found—in pieces—is no less profound. It was this image, taken when on assignment for Life magazine in 1998, that spurred a personal project about hate crimes and ultimately led to her work on a National Geographic story on the science of empathy—or, in the case of violence,
