Many believe that photographs have the ability to change the world, and they are correct. Certain images can change one’s entire outlook on life and make them feel emotions they may have never felt before. As stated by Johnathan Klein in the video Photos that Changed the World, “Images provoke reactions in people, and those reactions have cause change to happen”. While the images themselves are not going out and changing the world, they are the direct cause of the changes taking place.
Everyday, people are looking at photographs. Some of which may be on social media while others may be in printed newspapers and magazines. These images influence how we live our day-to-day lives. These images can potentially provoke people to dress, eat, or speak different ways, the contents of these photographs alter our thought processes whether they realize it or not. A perfect example of an image’s influence on society is from Professor Nordell’s video Photograph of Boris Yeltsin Dancing. As the narrator of this video explains, “…which was part of media coverage that convinced the Russian public that the president was healthy enough for reelection, and helped tip the election in his favor”. Just seeing a man dancing on stage was enough to sway the votes of countless Russian citizens.
Another way that images can change the world id through censorship. Certain populations may only be able to see the world through the images the government allows them to see. For instance, in the article Censorship of War Casualties, the author Ted Rall states that “US mainstream media and the public's willful ignorance is to blame for lack of knowledge about true cost of wars”. The media is hiding all of the pictures of dead troops and the blood shed from wars. Ultimately, this is tipping the public in favor of wars because they are not seeing the effect it has, the deaths of countless innocent people who have dies serving our country. This point is further elaborated when Professors Nordell’s video Do Photographs Change the World?. When he stated that “Sometimes there are images that are so shocking or horrifying that they choose not to publish them” the presence of censorship in society is brought to light for the viewers.
There were two images that changed the way that I view life. The first image was much more recent. This photograph is of the charred remnants of Amazonian rain forest trees. The reason why this image changed me is because it allowed me to see how cruel and thoughtless humans can be, This fire was caused by careless individuals, and now thousands of animals, plants and people have lost their lives. Because of media censorship, many people in the United States did not even know about the fires until a while after the fires had picked up momentum. The final image that changed my view of the world was a much older one taken at a concentration camp after the fall of the Nazis. The photo was taken at the start of the liberation of the Daschau concentration camp. In the photo, the Jewish prisioners were gathered around the gate. In the moment this photograph was taken, many emotions can be felt, extreme anger, sadness, relief and hope for a better life are all felt at once. As this was another act of human ignorance, I now have a stronger dislike towards my own species.
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| Photo by: Bruno Kelly |
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| Photo by: William McLaughlin |
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