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that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” Yet, the moment they capture may be understood
wrong without context. Photographs have the power to intellectually inform us, yet they also can
warp an event to convey the wrong message. Susan Sontag argues that these photographs can
only provide emotional knowledge, not knowledge about politics or ethics. A picture of a flower
stillness, not a source of knowledge. However, some photographs challenge people’s ideas and
reveal hidden truths while others mislead people. For example, Nick Ut’s photograph of the
napalm bombing depicts the American atrocities in Vietnam and challenges the ethics of the
United States’ attack on Vietnam to stop the end to Communism. While most Americans believe
that Communism was an evil in the world, the United States has burned innocent children,
utilizing the immoral napalm bombing. Ut’s photograph challenges some Americans’ belief that
the United States’ were fighting for just and exposes the wrongdoing of the United States.
Similarly, Nilufer Demir’s photograph of a dead child on the shores of Europe provides evidence
that the current politics of restricting immigration into some countries is unethical and even
inhumane. The photograph implies that the policies of many countries deny even young Syrian
children asylum; the dead body symbolizes the unethical nature of these policies. Seeking to
inform viewers of a political message, Demir’s photograph still evokes emotion, despair and
outrage, while questioning the world’s government actions that harm innocent Syrian people’s
lives.
However, other photographs do not depict such ideas and only evoke sentimental
thoughts. Some even conceal the context of photograph, restricting people’s understanding of the
events. Kevin Carter’s photograph of the vulture peering at the child’s emaciated body only
evokes sympathy and despair for that little girl’s plight. Yet, it ignores how Carter made no effort
to help this starving child. People do sympathize with the abject conditions of children in Sudan,
yet they do not consider the true context that many photographers, like Carter, witness suffering
and do nothing to alleviate their misery or help the victims. One photograph can hide this
The iconic photograph of the American soldier returning after World War II and kissing a nurse
displays the jubilation of returning victorious, yet this photograph does not illustrate the suffering
of Jewish people during World War II. Millions of Jewish people died in internment camps, yet
the photograph does not allude to those deaths. It does not depict political or ethical knowledge,
only emotional knowledge that misleads us into believing that the war was a “happy” victory for
the Allies.
without context, some are misleading and cause people to misunderstand the event. Sontag
claims that photographs hide worldly truths and fail to inform people about politics and ethics.
This is only partially valid. Some photographs do fail to reveal truths, and instead evoke
emotions and limit our understanding of the world. At the same time, other photographs