Can Photographs Change the World?

 Photo by: Thomas E. Franklin

Image Source: http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/tag/911/

The photo of the firefighters raising the flag affected me in many different ways. The image is so emotional for so many people and really showed what our country was all about. I was young when the attacks on the Twin Towers happened but I still remember the day perfectly. My parents told us not to turn on the TV until there were there with us to explain what happened. When I saw the image of the firefighters it brought back all of those memories. It made me think of everything that happened after 9/11 and how emotional it was. It really made me realize the fight our country put up to save everyone they could. It made me realize that we do not give up, no matter the circumstances. It helped me see what was really going on at ground zero. The photo is moving and I’m sure it is for many other people too. It is an image I will never forget.

  Photos have a huge effect on our world. But do they change the world? In my opinion photos can influence someone’s perspective on the world and make them change in some way. This can lead to changes in the world but a photo does not directly change the world. It is just like Johnathan Klein said that photos cause “provoked reactions in people, those reactions have caused change to happen”. The images help contribute to the changing world. There are many famous photos that are said to change the world. But how do you measure that? It is from the reactions of the people that are measurable. A picture that really shows this is the one of Earth from outer space. The picture did not change the world, but it changed society's perspective on what our world really looks like. It was a moment in history that we will never forget and it may have lead to a change, but the picture itself did not change the world.

Photo by: Apollo 8
Image Source: Dailymail.com

There is an example of some photos that have swayed many people’s opinions. One example of this is Boris Yeltsin dancing after his speech. The famous Pulitzer Prizewinning photo was said to help Yeltsin win the election. The image did not directly change the world but Yeltsin winning the election could have changed the world. The image altered people’s opinions but the people acting on that what was what helped to make a change in the world. Johnathan Klein says that we all have a choice, we can either look away or we can act. This is important when thinking about if an image changes the world. Does the image go and act on what is happening? It’s us that make that choice not the image.

There is no doubt that pictures have an effect on society. But society only allows us to see certain images. The government censors almost all of the pictures that are put into the public. Professor Nordell mentions a famous quote to help explain what censorship can do. He says “if a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear it, did it make a sound?” The government controls what can be shown and what can’t be. There are 6 companies that control 90% of the media according to Business Insider. There is so much constricting information because of the big companies that monitor the media. As Professor Nordell states there is a rising of internet publishing. This weighs out the big companies controlling what is in the media. The internet helps to give freedom to photojournalists to really show the images that they want to. One example of this is war photos. They can sometimes be very graphic and need to be controlled. Johnathan Klein says that “Images caused government to change their policies”. I think that that statement is true because they made images censored because of certain things society was seeing. In the 1960's during Vietnam the government allowed many graphic images to be displayed and that influenced society on what to think about war. Ted Rall explains the images of Vietnam with "A stream of media reports and images describing spectacular carnage suggested that the United States was embroiled in a brutal, dehumanising struggle." This is just another one of the reasons that the government censored images to the public.

Introduction to the History of Photojournalism

Photos define the world around us. They show our past, present, and future. Photojournalism tells a story and further defines the things we do. There are many types of photojournalists. Some people will go and travel the world and others will stay in the same place their entire life. Some people do it to try to make the world a better place and others do it for the pleasure of capturing an image. Jason Henske is a local freelancer in Brattleboro, Vermont. He says that “each and every day is different” even in the small market that he works in. They can range anywhere from photographing war to capturing a local musician performing. As Professor Nordell says it can be broken up into two parts; photos and journals. The photojournalists have to have both skills in being courageous when capturing the moment and being unbiased and aware of what is happening in the news. Photojournalists need to have the natural ability to capture the moment with the right equipment.

Photo by: Eddie Adams
Image Source: https://mediavisualartswebdesignbsimarro.wordpress.com/2014/10/04/leica-celebrates-its-century-of-photography-recreating-35-famous-photos/

            Photojournalism really can capture a key moment in history. One picture can become nationally known and remembered for many years. These photos are able to place ourselves where the picture was taken.They have the ability to make us feel something and really understand what was going on when the photo was taken. Photojournalists try to capture the reality of what is going on. The best photos are not planned. Photojournalists often put their lives on the line just to illustrate the importance of the photo. 

Photojournalism has evolved from film to camera and it is important to know the history of it all. What is history? Why do we study it? In Joanna Hayes’s video she considers it a “window to the past”. She mentions how the past is a key to the present. It helps to solve upcoming problems in our world today. It is to gain experience for us as human beings.

Photo by: John Filo
Image Source:
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/04/kent-state-university-shootings_n_857544.html
 

History helps explain our world today. Whatever happens in history has an effect on how we are living and the decisions we make every day. History is our past time and defines each and every one of us. Marcus Garvey has a famous quote saying, “A people without knowledge of past history origin and culture is like a tree without roots”. History is essential for general knowledge. It can help look at the world differently. We understand different cultures because of it, and have evidence of events that have happened and for what reason they did. Photojournalism started in the mid 1850’s and then evolved by taking pictures for news reporting. Dillon Westbrook writes in his article, “The introduction of the 35 mm Leica camera in the 1930’s made it possible for photographers to move with the action, taking shots of events as they are unfolding”. Since then it has branched out into many different sectors and delivering news in many different ways. This made it possible for photojournalists to illustrate the importance of the story the photos were telling and they continue to do that today.

Hindenburg Disaster 1937

Photo by: Sam Shere
Image Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/expatpicturegalleries/8502342/History-as-it-happened-the-photographs-that-defined-our-times.html