Susan Sontag states that although photography is aesthetically pleasing it can never be knowledgeable or informative. Though photographs can not relate numbers and dates that writing can , photography expresses an the indescribable aspect of life lost in the translation to writing.
Since the dawn of communication, the goal of writing has been to describe an event or location as accurately as possible, just as the goal of art ,until the invention of the camera, has been a progression to capture life realistically. With all the obsession over the visuals of life, there must be something that visual photos show. Photography allows for the communication of images exactly how it was when the photo was taken, showing the hidden truths that could be suppressed with word. In many times throughout history photos have spurred people in ways words could not. The photographs of the Vietnam war showed america the true nature of the war and spurring protests of the war. In World War 2 the photos taken of the Nazi concentration camps exposed to the world the horrors kept secret. It has been shown that photography over words show the world things that people do not believe or do not understand. The expression “Seeing is believing” proves that photography is more than a knowledgeable means of expression.
Though photography is, as Sontag points out, shows only how something looks, capturing purely a single moment in time. It allows people to draw their own unique conclusions. Unlike photography, writing can easily be biased and one sided, either by choice or unintentionally. Writers see the world through their eyes, and too often events and experiences identified by a single persons biased description. Photographs, on the other hand, show the truth, the whole exposing truth, but the truth none the less. A view of the world not blocked or clouded by a single persons experiences. Allowing each person their freedom to draw their own conclusion. Giving the world a broad spectrum...