Susan Sontag and Lewis W. Hine describe the purpose of photography as evidence. Sontag posits that "They [paintings] claim: things like this happened. In contrast, a single photograph or filmstrip claims to represent exactiy what was before the camera's lens. A photograph is supposed not to evoke but to show. That is why photographs, unlike handmade images, can count as evidence" (Sontag 47). Evidence, however is key to evoking, as presented by Hine: "Whether it be a painting or a photograph, the
picture is a symbol that brings one immediately into close touch with reality" (Hine 111). That closeness with reality, as prescribed by Hine, brings the human condition to sympathize, and thereafter evoke change (Hine 110).
The photograph selected, captured by Hine, shows child labor happening. Captions, rhetoric, adjectives, are unnecessary, for able beings to grasp the children's experience as it is presented in its purest form to the eye. It is unnecessary to describe the movement issued by the labor of the girl's hands, vulnerability, spirit. It is unnecessary to describe the tilt of the boy's head, not simply because he is looking at the work of his hands. This closeness to reality, as illuminated by Hine, and exactness of life captured by the lens, as developed by Sontag, is what serves to document evidence, for that which has taken place before the camera, because the photograph shows it.
I enjoyed reading this post, and I like the photograph you chose. The way photography is described as evidence of something that has happened is very accurate. It's accurate because you don't meed a caption explaining what the photograph is about. All you need to do is look at it. This photo and the post also reminds me of the discussions of realism we have had in class.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Molly. I think so too.
DeleteI think the "why" it says so much, without a single word, perhaps is because we may relate the evidence within a photograph, to our visual sense of our world. So as we equate what we see in the photograph to our visual sense of the world; I think we're able to "experience" the moment of a photograph.