Tanvi Patel Ms.

Petuch AP Lang & Comp / 1A March 20th, 2013 Photographs Essay The age old adage, a picture is worth a thousand words has become so fully integrated into our society, that we rarely contemplate the true worth of images. It is true that they provide a clear and concrete representation of events in our past, but are they truly effective in their purpose? Are they truly capable of presenting complex events in just one image? Unfortunately, they are not. Images have become iconic symbols of historical events but are very misleading. Well-known photographs are not able to convey the complex situations they aim to represent. The essential goal of any photograph is to capture a moment in time, and this in itself is a problem. No event can be justly depicted in just one image; in just one moment. For example, in the iconic Great Depression image, Migrant Mother by Dorthea Lange, a woman is shown with her 3 children. The woman clearly looks upset and worried and the childrens faces are hidden as if they were crying. This does represent a part of the Great Depression, but these same people were photographed entering the camp where this photograph was taken and they were delighted to have arrived. The image does not depict these emotions, it is taken out of context and so the viewer only gets a small piece of the entire situation. This is also apparent in the wellknown image of Tahrir Square from the Egyptian Revolution. It is a photograph taken from the sky of the square at night, bombarded with protestors. The image definitely shows the extravagant support that was present for the revolt but it is unable to depict the violence and struggles that the protestors faced during and before the revolt. Anyone viewing the image would

be impressed by the sheer extravagance of the event but would never understand the importance because the image has no way to portray the reasons why these people are protesting. Clearly, images are hindered as true representations of historical events simply because they are only able to depict one moment. Just as a journalist must battle personal bias while writing articles, photographers must fight bias when taking photographs. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult for a photographer to overcome the bias than it is for a journalist. A journalist is able to review their work and make edits; a photographer is restricted by time because they must capture their image immediately and cannot go back in time to take the image from another angle or use another subject. Photographers must follow their instinct and this creates a bias. Just as Freeman Patterson suggests in Barriers to Seeing, we (even photographers) face Me cramps which hinder us from actually being able to see something objectively. Instead, our personal opinions get in the way and guide our sight. What is more, in Langes Migrant Mother, the image shows a mother and 3 children, but men were also affected by the Great Depression. The photographer clearly chose this moment because she knew that seeing a worried mother alone with 2 young boys and a baby would inspire great sorrow in all those who viewed her image. She wanted to depict the depression which is what caused her to choose this moment to capture; it was not objective but rather goal oriented. Obviously, photographers express bias through their images which makes the photos bad representations of historical events. Just as there is bias when taking a photograph, there is bias in the interpretation of the photograph. Each image means something different to each person and this makes it extremely difficult to come up with a concrete conclusion about the event represented in the image. One iconic image of the Holocaust is of a group of Jews whose hands are up and in the center of the

image is a young boy. The image inspires such deep sorrow because we see very young children who must face the possibility of death, but this is only one interpretation of the image. Another person who sees this image may feel sorrow because they imagine the woman next to the boy as his mother and feel her pain because she is unable to protect her son. There are many more conclusions which can be drawn from this one image, which creates a problem. With so many possible interpretations, who is right? More importantly, how can society learn from this image is it cannot even decide what the image actually depicts. Furthermore, Donald Murray, in The Stranger in the Photo is Me, expresses another problem that photographs cause, as time goes on, they become more and more difficult to relate with. He writes that as an old man, he is unable to connect with a picture of himself in his youth. If a person is unable to relate to their own image, how will a later generation relate to an image that was taken decades before their time? They will not be able to really understand the image and this will mean that they will not be able to understand the purpose of the image or the moment that it depicts; the photograph will be useless. It is clear that photographs must be interpreted by the viewers which introduces yet another bias and makes photos ineffective for society. There is no doubt that images are unable to convey their purpose because they face many hindrances. Photographs are restricted to just one moment in time which is never enough to effectively describe an entire event in history. What is more, an image faces bias on both sides of the coin, when it is taken and when it is interpreted.