The intent and impact of photography is getting more important with time, it is not only newspaper now. The mass communication is depending on images today like never before. Photography is a very summarized and yet effective information providing media. Then again it depends on the quality and contents. There were times when people became numb to the numbers of sufferers they used to read very often in the newspaper. Then they begin to feel the agony through photographs. One thousand dead people in a photograph is much more stronger than 'one thousand dead' as a number written on a paper. Or perhaps a heartbreaking scene is more striking than a thousands' dead scene. But people now is becoming habituated to these as well, contents are competing with the quantity. We are watching thousands of distressing images from all over the world through television, internet on computers, telephone and so on. It is making us insensible to the subject’s effectiveness.
There were times when paintings were commissioned by churches and monarchy for public relation. Today there is photography. Not only staged commercial pictures, even the documentary photographs are also getting used for providing a particular impression. Camera is a machine, documents the true information it is given to, but the purpose and perspective of a photographer and sometimes the context and the way of presentation make the photograph a fake or perhaps a lie.
Now the purpose can be as positive as boosting patriotism of a nation by staging a victory scene or rising antiwar impression by showing the cruelty or tragedy in war. Sometimes creating a propaganda can also be the objective of a photograph. For example photograph of four missiles fired by Iran ratcheted up the tensions between the Islamic state and the US and Israel. Where some photographs find it's own way to justice like the photos of Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.
What is the truth? Does it depends on time and context? Is it variable to people and places? Is it what people wants to consider or something what they are offered without any other option? In case of photography, the truth is a concept always biased by what the photographer sees, believes or want others to believe. We can question the responsibility of a photographer or perhaps the responsibilities confront us all. That is why questions arise about humanity and duty when a subway passenger stays busy photographing a person who fell into the line just in front of him. There were also incidents where the photographers cannot bear their role they played in the brutality, even a great cause cannot overcome that pain. So we find examples where a war photographer says she feels guilty that she gets protected and stays alive after every tragedy; eventually she ends up dying on the battlefield. Or a photographer, who documents the food crisis of an African nation by letting a vulture kill a striving child and ends up by killing himself out of despair and regret.
So what matters most, the subject setting facts of a photographs or the purpose of the photographer at the time it was taken or the intention of it's use?
I believe truth in photography is getting pressurized with viewer's expectation and eventually effecting the photograph’s purpose. We are in obsession of recording everything. We miss to experience a significant scene by our eyes and feeling and stays busy with the camera's display as sharing everything is the trend now. The obsession reminds me of Panopticon prison where a circular structure with an “inspection house” at its centre was used to watch the prisoners. Our drive to stay in network made us prisoners by our choice.
There were times when paintings were commissioned by churches and monarchy for public relation. Today there is photography. Not only staged commercial pictures, even the documentary photographs are also getting used for providing a particular impression. Camera is a machine, documents the true information it is given to, but the purpose and perspective of a photographer and sometimes the context and the way of presentation make the photograph a fake or perhaps a lie.
Now the purpose can be as positive as boosting patriotism of a nation by staging a victory scene or rising antiwar impression by showing the cruelty or tragedy in war. Sometimes creating a propaganda can also be the objective of a photograph. For example photograph of four missiles fired by Iran ratcheted up the tensions between the Islamic state and the US and Israel. Where some photographs find it's own way to justice like the photos of Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.
What is the truth? Does it depends on time and context? Is it variable to people and places? Is it what people wants to consider or something what they are offered without any other option? In case of photography, the truth is a concept always biased by what the photographer sees, believes or want others to believe. We can question the responsibility of a photographer or perhaps the responsibilities confront us all. That is why questions arise about humanity and duty when a subway passenger stays busy photographing a person who fell into the line just in front of him. There were also incidents where the photographers cannot bear their role they played in the brutality, even a great cause cannot overcome that pain. So we find examples where a war photographer says she feels guilty that she gets protected and stays alive after every tragedy; eventually she ends up dying on the battlefield. Or a photographer, who documents the food crisis of an African nation by letting a vulture kill a striving child and ends up by killing himself out of despair and regret.
So what matters most, the subject setting facts of a photographs or the purpose of the photographer at the time it was taken or the intention of it's use?
I believe truth in photography is getting pressurized with viewer's expectation and eventually effecting the photograph’s purpose. We are in obsession of recording everything. We miss to experience a significant scene by our eyes and feeling and stays busy with the camera's display as sharing everything is the trend now. The obsession reminds me of Panopticon prison where a circular structure with an “inspection house” at its centre was used to watch the prisoners. Our drive to stay in network made us prisoners by our choice.
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