On 21/07/2011 2:27 PM, Tom C wrote:
Has the human condition improved since the invention of photography or
worsened? Not making a correlation at all. Just food for thought.
Better, I think. We seem to live longer if allowed the opportunity to do so.
Of course, we have also found much more efficient ways to kill each
other as well.
Neither of which has anything to do with photography.
However, I believe the FSA and photographers like Dorothea Lange may
have influenced things somewhat towards helping the indigent during the
depression with her documentary photography, certainly the
photojournalism that documented the Vietnam war had a lot to do with
turning the tide of opinion in America against that war and helped to
end it.
I suspect that the photographs taken of Nazi death camps and the victims
within had a lot to do with the formation of an independent Jewish state
(whether this has helped the human condition overall is debatable, but
certainly it has influenced it).
A few examples, anyway.
Sometimes it takes being slapped in the face by imagery of suffering to
make people realize that the world isn't all cute little puppies
cavorting in verdant fields under white fluffy clouds. And sometimes
that imagery gets them off their asses and makes them work towards
making things better.
And sometimes, they just get used in philosophical discussions by people
who are blessed to never know what it feels like to be shit on by an
angry God who doesn't give a damn about whether you live or freeze to
death in the dark.
--
William Robb
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