True... But by that reasoning all of the Katrina pictures should have impacted me that way, and that's not the case. Something was captured, for me at least, in that one particular photograph.

It could have been the contrast between new clothes/merchandise decayed, or the way the colors were deteriorated, faded and molded... On the other hand, maybe it's memory, maybe I'm associating something from my past with that picture. For other people, perhaps an image that did not get quite that reaction from me, might be the one that works on them.

kalonart.com