The Role Of Photographer As An Agent For The Environment

They contributed many photo essays to Arizona Highways, though Adams was less than thrilled with their color reproductions. Still, they are important for they championed a “uniqueness of the ‘American’ earth at a time when other artists and intellectuals were drawn to ideas of internationalism” (Dunaway, 2005, p. 131). The Sierra Club’s new storytelling technique the coffee table book and National Geographic’s photo-driven essays also grew in popularity. Other conservation organizations quickly grasped the value of photos as a way to appeal to Americans on a more personal and intimate level the importance of humanity’s relationship with land and nature (Corbett, 2006; Neuzil, 2008; Sierra Club,

A single photo can tell thousands of stories about people that have been silenced in the past or those who are still silenced today. This is the case for the photograph titled “Oppression” by Luke Moore. In such a simple picture, the author is giving voice to the women who have been mistreated, killed, raped and oppressed. This treatment against women is not new and has been implemented all over the world. Moore uses line, character, and color to appropriately demonstrate the fight women have against oppression and the responsibility society has on this oppressive system.

Environmental documentarian, Bridget Besaw, combines both photography and film to advocate wilderness preservation and food sustainability. She creates “visual stories that serve as a rousting, yet romantic reminder of our collective instinct to care for the planet” (Besaw, 2015). Besaw’s photography captures a range of environmental issues from “threats to Maine’s wilderness, loss of working farmland in New England, restoration of crucial salmon habitat in the North Pacific, wilderness preservation in South America, and sustainable fisheries initiatives throughout the world” (Besaw, 2015). Besaw uses photography so others get “a closer understanding of and relationship to their own bodies and the planet that provides them with life. So for

In Jennifer Baichwal’s The True Meaning of Picture, she focused on the subject of American photographer Shelby Lee Adams’ works. Adams’ pieces emphasize the culture people in poverty from the Appalachian Mountains. Baichwal also spends some time focusing on the controversy of the photographer’s images. The documentary shows direct quotes from Adams himself, the subjects of his pictures, the subjects’ family, and even art critiques. The film collides the views of all these people so that we may learn more about the Appalachian people. Throughout the course of the documentary, the

So crazy, in fact, that even when a coach turns a blind eye while a massive sexual assault scandal implodes the very program he helped turn into a national powerhouse, is still considered one of the premiere coaching candidates in college football.

As New York photographer James Maher quoted from A World History of Photography, “photographs used in campaigns for social reform not only provided truthful evidence but embodied a commitment to humanistic ideals” (361). Moreover, as shown in the article Documenting the Social Scene, the powerful photography that Hine and Riis have captured of immigrants encapsulate the need for change; furthering the separation of their photojournalism from illustrative and recreational art. From Hine documenting much of the practices of child labor, to Riis exposing the harsh living conditions of the Lower East Side of Manhattan, (Maher) both photographers comply to a code of ethics and sense of journalistic integrity— Riis and Hine showcase the truth behind the photos in a way that attempts to humanize the subjects on film as much as it attempts to engage a moral debate of the situations at hand. In addition, to exemplify the impact of photojournalism, we must consider the perspective of the Gilded Age

Photography plays an important role in reflecting a society. In the article "Looking at discipline, looking at labor", Eric Margolis talks about the representations of the photos of the Indian boarding schools in the US. Photographs are used to demonstrate the civilization of Native America Native American Children. Not only can we see the change of the students after civilization, but also the oppressive system in the Indian School. The photographs are used as the monitoring tool of the government too. The photographs provide us evident to all of these. We can know these by comparing the photos before the Native Indian Kids go to boarding school and after they attend the boarding school. By contrasting the photos from the two periods, we can see that the civilization of the Native American Indian children is actually an oppressive system.

While Postman points out the literal meaning of photography is “writing with light”; the two are from completely different universes when it comes to public discourse (p. 71). Unlike typography, photography cannot offer assertions, make propositions and offers no commentary. As long as it is not an altered photograph, it has no choice but to be true (p. 73). Thus, the photograph is only able to capture a moment in time and does not have the ability to comment on that moment. Our author contends, where language presents the world as an idea, the photographs only option is to show the world as an object (p. 72). Whereas in language, the correct context requires consideration of what is said before and after, in photography there is no before and after, only the snapshot of time. Therefore, by its very nature photography is context-free (p. 73). As photography immersed itself in the American culture author, Daniel Boorstin called this “the graphic revolution.” Postman is unequivocal on the point that the traditional forms of information, news, and even reality itself received an impairment by this new focus on images. For examples, he cites billboards, posters and advertisements. He points to magazines Life, Look and several newspapers. The picture was the focal point, and the writing was forced to take a less dominate roll and sometimes done away with altogether (p.

Before starting this project, I knew very little about photography, photographers, or exactly how much impact photographical images have had on our society. I have never taken a photography class, or researched too in depth about specific pictures or photographers. This project has allowed me to delve deeper into the world of photography in order to understand just how much influence pictures can have over society’s beliefs, emotions, and understandings’. I have have chosen two highly influential photographers, Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange, who I have found to both resonate with me and perfectly capture human emotions in way that moves others.

The first thing I will write about is a person, Jacob Riis. A esteemed author of the book “How the other half Lives”, published in the 1890s. Riis was a pioneer in the time when photography was first starting to catch on. In Riis’s photos he took pictures of people who lived in the slums of the major cities and how they lived. He was termed a Muckraker by our late president Theodore Roosevelt, because journalists like him would, as he would say, rake through all the good things and bad on the ground and only report the bad of the world. But Riis was one of the men of his era

Photographers have the ability to capture a certain moment in their lifetime. Some of them take advantage of the image in front of them and some do not fully understand the purpose of the moment. Is it worth recording the moment? Everyday people take images on their cell phones because they want to share them with friends and family. In 1993, Kevin Carter went on a trip to Sudan and took a picture of a starving Sudanese girl being stalked by a vulture. However, what photographers, like Kevin Carter, fail to realize is that every time a picture is taken, a part of the individual photographed is taken away. Kevin Carter’s presentation of the starving child serves not only as a claim of the ignorance of American people, but also as the measures

The person I interviewed is a 52 year old caucasian woman who is obese and smokes a half a pack of cigarettes a day. She has a health history of GERD and high cholesterol. She is a mother of two, a wife and works full time. She expressed interest in making a lifestyle change so she could be in better shape for her family and for herself.

Photographs are used to document history, however selected images are chosen to do so. Often times these images graphically show the cruelty of mankind. In her book, Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag asks, "What does it mean to protest suffering, as distinct from acknowledging it?" To acknowledge suffering is just to capture it, to point it out and show somebody else that it exists. In order to protest suffering, there has to be some sort of moral decision that what is shown in the photograph is wrong, and a want from the viewer to change that.

I went into the High Heel Drag Race having no idea what to expect. Although I was somewhat familiar with drag, I’d never been to a show before, and what I saw was an incredibly lively and enthusiastic celebration of sexuality and sensuality. I felt like I was part of something unique and closed-off, that and that anything was allowed in spirit of the performance. My observations that evening have led me to view the whole experience through the lens of Victor Turner’s anthropological perspective on ritual and drama. His perspective is revealing in the discussion of this particular event because it displays how symbols and rituals are intertwined and how these events even come into

Susan Sontag said photographs sends across the harmlessness and helplessness of the human life steering into their own ruin. Furthermore the bond connecting photography with departure from life tortures the human race. (Sontag 1977:64)