Photos are like windows into the past and the present. They aren’t just pieces of papers that have no use. They are a snapshot of history. In class we mainly talk about photographers who have something to do with history. We talked about the photographers who took photos of war and tragedy for the most part. The first question we were asked to ponder and discuss was, “How do photographs depicting human pain and suffering differ from paintings or other media depicting similar subject matter?” I had to take some time to really think about his question. I am a photographer and it was interesting to think about photographs compared to paintings, or types of media. Paintings are beautiful whether they dipict something sad or happy. I find them
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“The photographs are a means of making ‘real’ (or ‘more real’) matters that the privileged and the merely safe might prefer to ignore.” (sontag, 7) As said in this quote photographers are there to make real matters seem real to the privileged people who are home safe complaining about the war that they know nothing about. Photography plays a very important role in our lives even if nobody realizes it. Photography is in our everyday lives. “Not to be pained by these pictures, not to recoil from them, not to strive to abolish what causes this havoc, this carnage--these, for Woolf, would be the reactions of a moral monster.” (songtag, 8). We have easy access to the images of our friends and of tragedies around the world. We seem them all the time in our news feed but we sometimes choose to ignore it and keep on scrolling but feel bad for the people in the photos and about ourselves for not helping. That is a normal act of being human, it is when someone can look at all the tragedies in the photos and not feel anything that they are considered a monster. This is what photography does to us it helps us be human and to help reunite the human race beyond boundaries of culture or ethnicity it makes us want to help anyone or anything that is being harmed. In paintings we can choose to see whatever we want but in photos we are forced to face
“The photographs are a means of making ‘real’ (or ‘more real’) matters that the privileged and the merely safe might prefer to ignore.” (sontag, 7) As said in this quote photographers are there to make real matters seem real to the privileged people who are home safe complaining about the war that they know nothing about. Photography plays a very important role in our lives even if nobody realizes it. Photography is in our everyday lives. “Not to be pained by these pictures, not to recoil from them, not to strive to abolish what causes this havoc, this carnage--these, for Woolf, would be the reactions of a moral monster.” (songtag, 8). We have easy access to the images of our friends and of tragedies around the world. We seem them all the time in our news feed but we sometimes choose to ignore it and keep on scrolling but feel bad for the people in the photos and about ourselves for not helping. That is a normal act of being human, it is when someone can look at all the tragedies in the photos and not feel anything that they are considered a monster. This is what photography does to us it helps us be human and to help reunite the human race beyond boundaries of culture or ethnicity it makes us want to help anyone or anything that is being harmed. In paintings we can choose to see whatever we want but in photos we are forced to face