Can Photographs Change the World?

     Photographs can make you think, and feel thousands of different ways. As the old saying goes a picture is worth a thousand words. When you take a picture and post it somewhere it's to initiate a feeling, maybe a follower base, emotions, or change. That's essentially what photojournalists are trying to provoke in people. They either want a reaction, or to feel something so strong you can say, or do something about it. One picture for me that makes me feel so powerful is this picture from 9/11.

Image result for saddest 9/11 pictures

Photo By: Getty Images
     A lot of my emotional pictures to choose from come from 9/11 because I grew up in upstate New York, so when this event happened it shook my family differently not knowing what they should do, or if Albany was next. My mother was at work and had a coworker scared to death because their father was supposed to be on one of the planes. Thankfully they were blessed that morning because he had missed his flight. The rawness in this picture is what makes it so special because you see the aftermath in this picture, yet a firefighter in action ready to fight no matter the amount of survivors or impact. The impact on my life this photograph has is the worry that you never know what was to come next. It's just so raw and uncensored and that's what we need in today's media to show the depth of such crisis. In the article Ferguson's Citizen Journalists Revealed the Value of an Undeniable Video by Dan Gillmor the article reaches this depth of raw uncensored material. A police officer sparked outrage by killing an unarmed black men and in the article it states "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 and then released on Wednesday evening." This shows that they were trying to contain what was being seen that's the problem with some media nowadays it's super controlled when we need to see the raw stuff to be able to make decisions on what's going on, and to understand the depth of some situations. Mass companies control a lot of media outlets nowadays. It's because of this certain material is being expressed as a mass to the public and certain propaganda, and can swing public opinion and thinking. In the article Big Media Companies And Their Many Brands- In One Chart  it's stated "The Walt Disney Co. has bid more than $52 billion to buy much of 21st Century Fox. It's only the latest merger in the wave of deal-making washing over the media industry. AT&T is facing off with the federal antitrust officials over its $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner, which has been pending for more than a year." These kinds of things is what is going to cut the raw material and be a picture that only the media wants us to see.
     I was only 5 when this day happened, but my stepdad was a cop at the time, and was ready to report to work even though he had the day off because nobody had a clue where this was going to lead next. One of my best friends in college her uncle had died tragically in 9/11 and every year I would help her mourn her traumatic loss. To me this picture whips me back to being a child, and makes every muscle in my body weak, and my heart heavy. There is no amount of words in this picture to describe the emotional impact it has on all of America. It is powerful, and is a picture that shows the beginning of what is yet to come for New York, and America as a whole.
     I believe photographs can change the world. For some they believe that it's the people that also make the photograph, and not the photographer, in which I can agree as well. In the video Photos that changed the world Jonathan Klein states the words "Images have provoked reactions in people, and those reactions have caused change to happen". For example when people started seeing how the environment was falling apart then they started to actually do something about it. When people see how polar bears are struggling to live in their own habitat due to climate change, and extreme fluctuation in weather, and how the oceans are becoming dumping grounds for waste then we actually do something. A great photo to represent the spark in people that can advocate change would be this picture.

Image result for polar bear dying

Photo By: Christina Mittermeier
Image Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2018/08/explore-through-the-lens-starving-polar-bear-photo/#close

     This picture shows a starving polar bear in their own habitat. The global warming has sparked for the ice to melt, and their food to disperse elsewhere out of reach for the polar bears. This has led to a spike in deaths of polar bears. This kind of photo once released to the public has sparked outrage. Suddenly everybody wants to save the polar bears, and figure out some form of environmental relief for animals so we can save them, but before people had no clue what was going on, but this picture forced them to know. An example of a picture like this that makes people see something that makes them change their views is when Alexander Zemlianichenko took a picture of Yelstin dancing at a concert that swayed the political votes in his favor over one picture. In the video, Photograph of Boris Yeltsin Dancing it is stated "it shows him in a good condition he tried to dance" which is the reason why his election favors shot up because he was shown in such good mood and health from this one picture that became iconic.








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