The word "
Photography" was first discovered by Sir John F.W Herschel in 1939, it derived from the Greek word
"photo" means light and
"grahein" means to draw. The first photograph published in 1827 with the invention of camera followed the law of optic by Aristotle (
Bellis).
Photography is the nostalgic of art and it act as "
a sort of abstract history" (
Caroline 1997). Based on the transcript reported by
Heizmann, photograph is able to keep memory alive and it plays an important role in reminding people of what had happened in the past (espeacially during the war); thus, future generation will be able to prevent from repeating it.
Photograph is so powerful that it actually freezes the time to give the past a tangible form (
Caroline 1997). Photograph represents an indexical sign where it is able to show people the real event that had happened (
Peirce 1934); the real surface and the real faces of people or places involved.
Below a picture of Malaysia Independence in 1957 at Dataran Merdeka with Malaysia 1st Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra al-Haj:
According to
Huff 1998, every image does tell a story. Looking at the war photography, each photos (before, during and after war) can make up a story to be told to the future generation. Movies that we have been watching today (e.g. Pearl Harbour, World War II etc) are largely derived from the photos captured during the happening event.
Click picture to enlarge
It is the photos that announce their existence (
Cadava 1992). Without photograph, even with the existence of narration, people would less likely to believe as they believed that words can be fake but photography never lie (
Barthes 1982). It resembles the witness in spite of the photographer themselves (
Bloch 1954)
However,
Gary and Wade 2005 argued that with the advancement of technology today, photograph does lie. The power of "Photoshop" is able to make everything possible; pictures can be edited, background scenery can be changed etc.
Picture below shows the power of "Photoshop" (changing the background scenery):
Source: www.photoshopcreative.co.uk
My opinion
Although photography is important as it helps people to recall and visualize an event (
Dobson & Marham 1993), however, words does matter. A photograph is only a still picture, different individual can have different thoughts and give different meaning to that picture. Hence, the opinion is subjective.
Thus, photograph and words have to come together to give a clear meaning to people without giving space for them to fill the gap and misinterpret the meaning of the picture.
Referencing:
Barthes, R 1982, "Camera Lucida: Reflection on Photography", London.
Bellis, M, "History of Photography", investors.about.com, viewed 12th June 2010
<
http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/stilphotography.htm >
Bloch, M 1954, "The Historian's Craft", Manchester U.P, London.
Caroline, B 1997, "War and Photography: A cultural history", Routledge, London.
Cavada, E 1992, " Words of Lights: Theses on the photography of history",
John Hopkins University Press, Diacritics Vol. 22 No. 3/4, pp 84-114
Dobson, M & Marham, R 1993, "Imagery ability and source monitoring: Implication for eyewitness memory",
British Journal of Psychology, Vol. 84, pp 111-118
Garry, M & Wade, K A 2005, " Actually, a picture is worth less than 45 words: Naratives produce more false memories than photographs do",
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, Vol. 2(2), pp 359-366.
Huff, D D 1998, "Every picture tells a story",
National Association of Social Worker, Inc, Vol.43 (6).
Heizmann, S, "The Power of Photography", viewed 13th June 2010
<
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2051819.htm|>
Pierce, C S 1934, " Collected papers of Charles Sander Peirce: Pragmatism and Pragmaticism",
Harvard University Press, Vol.15
Blog needs to be written in an ethical form. The reason is because "Pen is mightier than sword" (Marcus 2009), whereby everything that is written not only to convey messages to the readers, it also build a "trust" to the readers. Hence, each words to be written must be in the language that is accepted by all.
