Can Photographs Change the World?

As simple and minimal photographs can be at times, I believe they definitely have the power to change the world or at least influence people. The photograph I believe affected me the most is this image a young African American boy holding a sign during a protest that states “Racism isn’t born, its taught.” This image affected me the most because knowing the story behind the pictures and protests makes me sad and to think a young boy is a part of an event like this is even more heartbreaking. It’s also interesting to see that he understands enough to know that racism isn’t something someone is born to know, it’s something that has to be taught. It proves how easily the youth can be influenced to be taught the good from the bad. With the direction, our world came from and the path its slowly going back down, it’s important to see young people understand what’s right from wrong. More images like this should be viral, so that people know the best way to raise their children. I understand most people believe racism is always going to be around, which is true in some cases, but it can be decreased if more people saw it as being learned not just inside of you when you’re born.

Photo by: Noah Berger/Reuters

As stated before I do believe photographs can change or influence the world. One image that I would say changed the world is that of a man who was captured falling from the World Trade Center Towers. This one man was capture out of at least 200 others who either fell or jumped form the Twins towers during the September 11 attacks. The photograph definitely influences the world because it’s an attack that is still talked about to this day. Many people have different viewpoints or stories of what they saw from that day. If you were someone that actually witnessed a person falling from that extreme height, then you definitely will never get that sight out of your head. This attack is definitely an event that changed the way people viewed life and overall how the world is today.

Photo By: Richard Drew

Images are very powerful, even enough to cause people to think and change their viewpoint on the world. In the video, Photograph of Boris Yeltsin, it stated “How one ephemeral moment in time can be captured and amplified by the click of a shutter.” This is a great example on how the world can be changed from an image because it if wasn’t for this photographer capturing Boris Yeltsin dancing, citizens wouldn’t have known he was healthy enough for another term in office. The fact that this gave him a boost in the election, just shows that a simple image can create such an impact. In the video, Photos that Changed the World, Jonathan Klein stated “…images have provoked reactions in people, and those reactions have caused change to happen.” This statement might go against the idea of images changing the world but I still agree with it. Images have an influence on people and their reactions. They cause people to think a certain way or do something different. I agree with him saying that these reactions are what causes the changes. In a sense images might not be directing changing the world, but they influence changes to occur.

I believe many media or news outlets know that images can stir up a lot of different emotions for people. They figure they censor some information so that people don’t see the dark or ugly stories, and in a sense, react to them. There is plenty of images that are hidden from the public because they are too violent or evil to be shown. If you take a look at the Ted Rall’s article, Censorship of War Casualties in the US, it states “The Times published only a handful of dead and dying soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. Compare that with other countries, where pictures of the war dead routinely appear in print and on the air.” This supports my claim on how the US censors the pictures that are displayed in the media for us to see. They don’t want us to know the truth about these gruesome wars. I believe they keep majority of the images hidden because they know the reactions to them won’t be positive. Another way the higher officials censor what goes in the media is arresting individuals who decide to record and post police killing unarmed citizens without probable cause. In Dan Gillmor article, Ferguson’s citizen journalists revealed the value of an undeniable video, he states “Antonio French, an alderman in nearby St Louis, spent days posting to Twitter pictures and a series of videos of the demonstrations and police actions that he captured on his mobile phone – and was reportedly arrested…” This proves that innocent people are being punished for exercising their rights. There is no true law that says he cannot record and post police action on social media. The officers just didn’t like how they were portrayed online so they decided to use their privilege to force him to remove it. This is a clear example of censorship and control of what we see in the media.