What Photography Means to Me

    When talking about photography, it is not unusual to hear the expression, a picture is worth a thousand words. Heiferman says "To see and experience the world, we don't only look at images; we take them, and often." Photography is not just about taking a picture, but about capturing a moment in time. A moment in time that can make us feel a vast array of emotions, can teach us, can move us towards changing the world, all without saying a single word.

    As a corporate communication major, I see photography as a boundless form of communication from the past to the present. Whether an artist is using photographs as a form of self-expression or a realtor is using photographs to sell a house. As Heiferman explains, photography has been used across all occupations, whether it be a museum curator, a geographer, or even a CIA agent. Each occupation has different uses for photography. A museum curator could see photography as a tool for art and to capture historic moments, while a CIA agent uses photographs to provide evidence during an investigation (Heiferman). 

    To me, photography is one of the ultimate forms of communicating thousands of ideas and feelings into one unified message. We can see this looking at the photographs from 9/11. During the attacks on 9/11, hundreds of Americans on the ground stopped and captured the tragic moments as they happened. A documentary I once watched about 9/11 said people robotically got out their cameras, in a second-hand nature. In a time where people were speechless, they used photography as their means of communicating their thoughts and emotions to the world. Today, we can look back at these photographs and become riddled with emotions. Sadness for the innocent lives lost on that day, anger towards the terrorists, or a sense of unity seeing strangers helping each other. Seeing the selflessness of strangers on that day and the days after left a lasting impact on my life - and I was barely a year old at the time the attacks occurred.

    But thanks to photography, I was able to learn, feel emotions towards people I never met, and see that even through the darkest of times, there will always be a light to guide us out of the darkness. I agree with Heiferman when he said, "photography is catalytic. While we tend to think of photographs as rearview mirrors, the reality is that photography aggressively moves us forward and changes everything." When we look at photographs we are seeing the past calling upon the present to change the future. It is ultimately up to the viewer to interpret this calling from the past, to bring about a change that is for better or worse. To me, photography means to inspire change.