Thoughts

As you may know, I'm a full time photography student at the School of Visual Arts studying digital photography. What drew me to the program was the potential for images to draw in a large audience, regardless of their language skill or education level. With internet technology, images with emotional impact can circle the globe in seconds.

Photography is a means, not an end. In one of our readings, Sebastian Salgado says, "Photography can change absolutely nothing; the most that it can hope for is to show that some things ought to be changed." Is that not true of any art? Do we not face this in our every day lives? How often do we want our friends to not make that really bad choice, to have our parents act differently, for our government to be moral and proactive. And what can we do about it, except express ourselves any way we can, maybe provide an alternative, a few words that offer hope or an alternative way of living. We, as Epictitus stressed in his Manual for Living, must know what we can change and what we can not. We must change what we can, and not worry about that which is out of our reach.

The only conflict lies in that we never know what is truly beyond our reach. If we determine that something is out of our control, we may simply write it off and never try to bring about change. And that writing off may limit ourselves to a narrow, pedestrian existence. And at this point we return to art, or perhaps simply expression, a targeted one, takig into account that which we would like to change and providing an alternative through a kind word, some advice, an image, a story, a song, a play, a film. However you can bring your vision of a better life into this world, you must do so, never knowing what impact it may have on others. Like a stone thrown into a pond, we will never know how far the ripples extend. So, to Salgado, photography can change absolutely nothing, but a vision of the way things ought to be can change absolutely everything.