How do some photographs help us understand social problems better?

Question

When you look at pictures of the less fortunate, how do you feel? What do you learn from seeing these pictures? What do you think when you see them?

Answer 1

It depends on the person's mindset. One of the first post-holocaust things that happened were Russian and American soldiers forcing German citizens to walk through the death camps as a wake-up call. A ton of pictures, books, and actual records have also be widely spread.

Yet today we have people that still believe that the Holocaust didn't happen, all the pictures were created via special effects, all survivors' stories are lies, and all records have be falsified and tampered with.

You will see only what you want to see in a photograph. If you are honest enough to see the truth, you will see that mankind is consistent in it's brutality and ignorance with little sign of mankind's growth.

Personally, save for perhaps a score of people whom I care about, generally speaking I'm not overly fond of humans. There are times I feel pity, sorrow, empathy for others. I've bought people food, I've regularly turned clothing over to shelters, donated money when I can, and even got out in the middle of the street to pluck up a crying, near naked toddler getting ready to waddle onto a freeway, only to be followed and threatened by members of the neighborhood as I walked around and tried to locate the child's mother. Finally a relative showed up to reclaim the child stating that this had happened more than once. She then disappeared and more threatening people started showing up. I had no way to know where the child lived, so the best I could do was go to the church at the end of the street, which was where I was ultimately going to go if I didn't find a relative, and told them of the matter. They knew who I was talking about and said they'd take care of it. Did they? I don't know.

When it really gets down to it, I frankly become more upset by seeing a lost dog desperately looking for home - it wasn't the dog's fault that he was born; it was likely that the dog was born to animals owned by people who didn't bother to get them neutered. It isn't the dog's fault that he's lost or abandoned - again, that falls upon bad care by humans. I shouldn't be surprised, though, considering what I've written above, but it bothers me more because animals are true innocents that will never grow into the selfishness of cruelty of humanity.

Mankind is the only animal to exist that enjoys the suffering of others.

Answer 2

There are just so many social ills in this world that it is hard to start, so let me just pick a topic, famine in Africa. With all good intention there is a lot of attention placed on starving children overseas. Whether it is a Salgado photograph, or a tv commercial, it is hard to escape the suffering of children in this world. How does it make me feel? Like any human it makes me feel horrible, but like many other people as well I think I am on sympathy/sensory overload, and perhaps the only thing I can do at this moment is to turn off the tv or look the other way when I am in a gallery. On the other hand there are topics of social ills which don't receive as much attention that focus my attention and sympathy. The photographs by Mary Ellen Mark of homeless children in Seattle is something which I can at least look at, approach, and feel that perhaps I can make a difference. Maybe I feel this way because the subjects are closer to home, but really it is more because I don't see commercials every hour on the hour about some unnamed homeless child in America. Regarding the question as to what I learn from these photos, I don't think it is so much about what I learn, but how I feel, everyone knows there is suffering in this world, it is just that not everyone chooses to sympathize.

Answer 3

A photo tells a thousand words! Some of us relate better to words (verbal), while others relate better to sight (visual). Eg a picture of an undernourished child carries the message of her condition better than description in words.

Answer 4

Think of it as a one way trip down a dark hallway. Along with you there are hundreds of fellow travelers all to busy to look out into the dark and see there world.With just a flash of light you can show your fellow travelers a bit of the world about them. The trick is what do you show them.

Answer 5

BECAUSE THE VISUAL IMPACT.

Answer 6

They don't.