Fourteen

In his article, Morris seems to be saying that without captions or background information, pictures do not have as much meaning. He also explains how pictures cannot be true or false without knowing anything about them. His argument is kind of confusing and I am not sure that I agree with it. While I think that captions help to understand pictures, I don’t think that pictures are meaningless without them. When people look at a picture, they are going to interpret it in their own way, whether there is information presented about it or not. I think pictures themselves are truthful, whether you know anything about them or not. Even if what you see in them is not necessarily factual or true, it is still a real image that happened at some time, besides of course the digitally created pictures or photo shopped fake images that we see today. I think that looking at a picture always evokes a reaction that is unique and personal to the person that is looking at it. Putting a caption under it or describing it through text does not always change that. Even though it helps people see where the picture came from and better understand its context, they still might interpret it differently than the next person. I think the stories and emotions that come from pictures are more important than whether the picture can be true or false. This article is kind of a weird article and I don’t find his arguments that meaningful or useful.

http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photo-of-the-day/cricket-game-bangladesh/

National Geographic has a great collection of photos and on this blog in particular; they put up a photo of the day every day. When looking at the pictures, I have thoughts about them even before reading the description. They give a little description at the bottom, giving more background and explanation which helps to understand the picture better. Even without reading the description, I think they are true pictures and show true places, people, and emotions among other things.