Watching Suffering From A Distance: Photograph Analysis

Susan Sontag stated the idea that, “imagines cannot be more than an invitation to pay attention,” (Susan, “Watching Suffering from a Distance”). This statement not only introduces the idea of one’s attention being caught by a photo, but also causes a person to review the significance of the image. Images trigger one’s thought process. They have the ability to assert questions and statements in the viewers mind regarding the photos purpose and event details. Photographs are filled with content that can cause one to think of more than what’s shown. A bulk of photographs that cause people to consider the event taking place is usually ones taken of war disasters. One example is the photograph from the Vietnam War (Nguyen, “The My Lai Massacre”). This image contains the bodies of deceased mem, women, and children scattered a crossed a dirt road, bleeding from the gun shot wounds. The U.S. covered up this horrific massacre toward …show more content…
Photography from Sally Mann is a debatable subject of where the line is for photography as art. In her famous photo Fallen Child, she takes a photo of her naked daughter lying on side in the grass (Mann, “Fallen Child.”). This has become controversial because some of her audience see it as child pornography as others see it as another technic of expression through photography. Her audience begin to conceder her intentions. Sontag is able to point out the source of division between the two groups from Mann’s audience by affirming, “The frustration of not being able to do anything about what the imagines show” (Sontag, “Watching Suffering from a Distance”). The audience of a picture doesn’t have any direct effect on the event that the photo captures. After that initial idea of the image impacts the audience they begin to further analyze the photo. An audience of a photo is subject to evaluating the images content promoting their thought process of