The power of photography is often underestimated. A simple picture taken in a moments notice, can carry such a profound meaning to the viewer. It carries the mood of the image, the feelings and/or raw emotion. To what extent can a single image impact people? Can a single image change a person’s view, a group of people’s view, a country, or the world? Can one single image hold the power to change the world? Yes it can. A single image taken at the right, unexpected moment, can have such a profound impact on society, so much to the point where society will demand change.
At times, it is very hard to imagine the struggles of people halfway across the world. Society may be aware of a war, poverty, genocide, and so on, going on in a country, but once the visuals start coming in, and people start seeing the carnage or the severity of the problem, it makes people very uneasy and uncomfortable to watch, hence they want to help or stop it. On the other hand, the reason for it being hard to imagine the struggles, is because as Professor Nordell stated, “The concentration of ownership in media can constrict the flow of information to the media”. It is disturbing to know that according to a business insider article: "Since 1983, 50 media companies have been consolidated to just 6, and those 6 companies control 90% of the media in America”. Talk about limiting the information reached out to the American people. It makes you question, what else is going on that we don’t know about? The sad part is, it is not just these huge companies trying to censor media. The government is always being cautious of the type of information being shared. But, with the advent of the internet and phones with camera capabilities, it has become almost impossible now to censor the citizens of this country. With all the issues going on within our own country, citizen journalism has become vital. According to the Guardian’s article, “Citizen journalism has complemented the work of the traditional journalists on the scene, and has reminded us what is becoming a civic duty in today’s America”.
Image Source:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x34ur6h
The picture above affected me and continues to affect me. As an empathetic human being, a mother of a small child, and having many middle-eastern friends and family-in-law. In addition, a particular good friend of mine is Syrian, born and raised until moving to the U.S. in his teens, and seeing this picture I was haunted. Up until that point, I knew about the war in Syria, but was honestly disconnected from it since it is so far away, until this image came out and I cried. The amount of innocent children having to pay the price for the issues in their country is unacceptable. This picture was published just a little over a year and the amount of children directly affected by this war is completely abhorring. In a year's time, we still continue to see many more images of Syrian children killed or injured due to this unnecessary war.
Image Source:
http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/entertainment_tv/2006/08/the_death_of_ke.html
The above image was taken in 1993, to showcase the level of famine in Sudan. I recall when this image was made public and remember how horrified I was at how this child was unknowingly moments from death. This image touched so many people. Images of children starving in African countries always pulled at the heartstrings of many Americans for decades, and I am sure that without these images, Africa would not have received much of the help that they have received throughout the years. Although the world has known the struggles of the African countries for many years, sometimes an image is released that refocuses the importance of helping out in the recurrent famine in Africa and this image definitely did that. It sparked a massive effort to help the starving people in Sudan. So, to conclude and bring everything full circle, in Jonathan Klein’s speech on Ted TV, he perfectly stated: “The truth is that we know that the images themselves don't change the world, but we're also aware that, since the beginning of photography, images have provoked reactions in people, and those reactions have caused change to happen”, and the pictures posted on this blog are one of many pictures that proves that photographs can change the world.
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