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Photographs are taken, shown, and spread all over for the world to see. But the real question that should be on everyone's mind is, what do they really capture? Is it the essence of reality or what you want to believe? Knowledge and opinions of mankind are made from these simple pieces of paper. Yet, having this in mind, we educate our children and future generations to come that we should not judge a book by its cover. Opinions not only limit us from the outside world but they give us an “incalculable effect” of our morality. Susan Sontag's assertion that photographic technology opens a vast amount of events that represent a moment in time. Through justifiable statements, she illustrates that people carry a heedless mindset of the world looking at photographs. However, accessibility to the worlds ideals that may be obtained by a photograph is false. Photographs minimizes the truth behind the photo, it alters what the photographer wanted to viewer to unravel. Susan Sontag encompasses around the idea that photographs limit our understanding of the world without essential description...
Having such an image before our eyes, often we fail to recognize the message it is trying to display from a certain point of view. Through Clark’s statement, it is evident that a photograph holds a graphic message, which mirrors the representation of our way of thinking with the world sights, which therefore engages other
"Nominated for a 1998 National Book Award for Young People's Literature, No Pretty Pictures: A Child of War is Anita Lobel's gripping memoir of surviving the Holocaust. A Caldecott-winning illustrator of such delightful picture books as On Market Street, it is difficult to believe Lobel endured the horrific childhood she did. From age 5 to age 10, Lobel spent what are supposed to be carefree years hiding from the Nazis, protecting her younger brother, being captured and marched from camp to camp, and surviving completely dehumanizing conditions. A terrifying story by any measure, Lobel's memoir is all the more haunting as told from the first-person, child's-eye view. Her girlhood voice tells it like it is, without irony or even complete understanding, but with matter-of-fact honesty and astonishing attention to detail. She carves vivid, enduring images into readers' minds. On hiding in the attic of the ghetto: "We were always told to be very quiet. The whispers of the trapped grown-ups sounded like the noise of insects rubbing their legs together." On being discovered while hiding in a convent: "They lined us up facing the wall. I looked at the dark red bricks in front of me and waited for the shots. When the shouting continued and the shots didn't come, I noticed my breath hanging in thin puffs in the air." On trying not to draw the attention of the Nazis: "I wanted to shrink away. To fold into a small invisible thing that had no detectable smell. No breath. No flesh. No sound."
People tend to views an image based on how society say it should be they tend to interpret the image on those assumption, but never their own assumptions. Susan Bordo and John Berger writes’ an argumentative essay in relation to how viewing images have an effect on the way we interpret images. Moreover, these arguments come into union to show what society plants into our minds acts itself out when viewing pictures. Both Susan Bordo and John Berger shows that based on assumptions this is what causes us to perceive an image in a certain way. Learning assumption plays into our everyday lives and both authors bring them into reality.
In the essay “Why We Take Pictures” by Susan Sontag, she argues that taking photos can be a tool of power and sometimes even a defense against anxiety(353). Taking pictures can be a great source of power, according to Sontag. The photographer has the power to show what they want and people can choose whether or not to be in the photo. Sontag uses the example of a family photo; as some family photos portray the family being happy, many people cannot see that the family might not actually be as happy as they look. Sontag also uses examples like nuclear families and traveling in order to enforce her claims about picture taking. In a nuclear family, Sontag believes that taking a picture of that family can help relieve some anxiety because people
Arresting images from the everyday and making a “commentary on contemporary society using the very images that helped to create that society”
Sontag, Susan. "Essay | Photography Enhances Our Understanding of the World." BookRags. BookRags. Web. 15 Apr. 2014.
A picture is more than just a piece of time captured within a light-sensitive emulsion, it is an experience one has whose story is told through an enchanting image. I photograph the world in the ways I see it. Every curious angle, vibrant color, and abnormal subject makes me think, and want to spark someone else’s thought process. The photographs in this work were not chosen by me, but by the reactions each image received when looked at. If a photo was merely glanced at or given a casual compliment, then I didn’t feel it was strong enough a work, but if one was to stop somebody, and be studied in curiosity, or question, then the picture was right to be chosen.
Against a bleak backdrop, U.S troops stand thrusting an American flag into the grey skies. The shards of wreckage at their feet speak of the arduous journey these soldiers had taken to reach the summit of the mountain. Despite the grim setting on the ground, the American flag waves on in a perfect manner swaying along with the wind gusts. As a photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal in 1945, this image of U.S troops raising a flag in Iwo Jima during World War II served as a symbol of hope and victory for the American public during the gruesome end to war. The photograph earned Rosenthal a Pulitzer Prize, and showed the extant of the power of a photograph to elicit emotion from an audience. These emotions have the ability to affect ones’ perception towards what the photograph is depicting. However, if these photographs can produce an emotional response, is it possible for them to steer the perception of the audience in a desired direction? If so, is there a way for one to sift through the possible propaganda?
The character I plan to write about for my final paper is Amal from Does My Head Look Big in This? written by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Amal is of the Muslim faith and attends high school as an eleventh grader. She makes a huge decision to wear the hijab full time before she starts her school year. Three things that help her get through school and life are the hijab, prayer, and an important holiday to the Muslim faith known as Ramadan. Amal finds a deeper connection with her faith when she begins wearing the hijab as well as when she begins praying. Not only does she connect to her faith, but she also gains confidence, which she realizes may be too much confidence later in the novel. Ramadan really helped her identify with other characters in the
On the night of January 13, 2013, Jeffrey Wright was killed after causing his wife, Susan Wright, years of distress and abuse. His body was disfigured after being stabbed approximately 193 times. The body lay on his former mattress which had become blood-soaked and cut up. Attached to his wrists are ties which had been used to anchor him to the bed, making him unable to escape. His last visual memory was the sight of his wife hovering over him with a knife, wondering how she had been able to do what she was about to do. How could she, his wife, betray him and kill him with no remorse?
“Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced an amusement as sex and dancing, which means that, like every mass art form, photography is not practiced by most people as an art. It is mainly a social rite, a defense against anxiety, and a tool of power” (Sontag 8). After reading this quote in my head multiple times, I started to realize that people use it for different purposes. When I took a photography class in college, it was under the category “art.” Which made me think of it as a form of art, when there are so many other ways to view photography. Sontag changed my opinion about photography after further interpreting her quote because to have a camera in our hand, being able to capture the world through our lens is to have a tool of
Photojournalism plays a critical role in the way we capture and understand the reality of a particular moment in time. As a way of documenting history, the ability to create meaning through images contributes to a transparent media through exacting the truth of a moment. By capturing the surreal world and presenting it in a narrative that is relatable to its audience, allows the image to create a fair and accurate representation of reality.
In Sontag’s On Photography, she claims photography limits our understanding of the world. Though Sontag acknowledges “photographs fill in blanks in our mental pictures”, she believes “the camera’s rendering of reality must always hide more than it discloses.” She argues photographs offer merely “a semblance of knowledge” on the real world.
Photography may be a more effective and reasonably inexpensive alternative to drawing or painting, but more thought and feeling goes into a painting than a photograph.
Photography has created an outlet for the masses to story tell. It has a way of speaking without words like most art forms and is a manner of expression in itself. To eradicate photography from humans would be equivalent to taking away a limb from humankind. Our society has grown an immense amount of dependency on it. Photography has become almost a daily menial task such as brushing your teeth; where we must take pictures of the things we deem important or equally unimportant, even more so with the invention of social media outlets such as Instagram and Snapchat, where photography is the main source of communication between people who use them. Susan Sontag offers the basis of what taking pictures can undertake in both our daily lives and moments that are not part of our daily lives, such as travel. Traveling to places where one is not accustomed can flare pent up anxiety. A way to subdue that anxiety could be through taking pictures, since it’s the only factor that we have total control over in a space where we don’t have much, or, any control of our surrounding environment. On the other hand, taking photos can also be a tool of power in the same sense as it allows for it to be a defense against anxiety. With the camera in our hands, we have the power to decide who, what, where, when, and why we take a picture. This in turn also gives the person who took the picture power over those who later analyze the photos, letting them decide the meaning of the photo individually, despite the intended or true meaning.