A new look of photography

It didn't hit me until after I finished reading this work what exactly it meant to me, and perhaps to others. As well as how it relates to photography in general. When you read this piece, it is easy to start day-dreaming-- losing some of its rich detail, (or monotonous detail) and just skim more or less through the paragraphs. And perhaps it isn't the worst thing in the world. Knowing exactly what shirt and dress is made out of isn't the most riveting information one could hope for about struggling middle class families. But the point of the work was to supplement photographs that the authors had taken of these three families, and in so doing, enrich both the writing and the photographs because of each other. And it was definitely successful.

There are two ways to veiw a photograph: without background information, or with it. With information could be as little as the title, or as much as the detailed descriptions presented in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I realized that both are amazing ways to look at a photograph. If a viewer doesn't have any background on a photo, they are at first puzzled and probably automatically starts searching for its meaning, its beauty--why the photographer took it in the first place. Sometimes the nature of beauty answers this question, and sometimes it may turn out utterly confusing and frustrating and maybe we give up. We figure, oh well, I don't get it. Other times we come up with our own meaning, and it becomes so special that every time we look at it, it becomes greater and greater, and maybe evolves into something entirely different. It is an exciting experience, no doubt. Strangers become friends, faraway lands become familiar.

In this work, the authors strategically put the pictures before the writing, so we are forced to look at them with no information provided. Some people probably skipped over them, and maybe some spent more time, but there is no question that these photos were somewhat lacking in meaning until after the reading was read. Once we learn about these people in detail that goes down to the buttons, they really become people we start to know and certainly become people with which we can sympathize. Even if we haven't been that poor, or had to wear the same three pairs of clothes over and over, perhaps we have felt that exhausted or needed a new pair of shoes because they had holes but they were just too comfortable to let go. That last thing has happened to me, definitely. Anyway, my point is that taking a second look at these photos after reading about them gives them depth and emotion that is hard to create the first time. Or maybe it just a different emotion that is created. One based on truth, whether it is happy or sad, rather than our own interpretation. Even if the children (or adults) look sad, that doesn't mean they are, and the reading would be able to tell us that.