Your Camera and You…Instruments of Change

With the ease and ability to pull our phones from our pockets and snap off a dozen quick pictures of our food, our friends, or ourselves, we’ve come to take for granted the amazing tool that we hold in our hands every day.  And we’ve turned the lens of that tool towards ourselves so much, that we’re missing the opportunity to document and effect the world around us.

Those of us who lived pre-social media (PSM) know this wasn’t always the case.  In PSM times, photos had meaning.  Photos had impact.  Photos inspired change.  They expressed conflict, pain, and resolve in a way that would affect us so emotionally they would propel us into action.  Many had the ability to bring whole societies together.  Some even made the entire world stop and take notice.  Others should have but didn’t.

Here are a few that immediately come to mind.

Kent State 

In 1970, demonstrators on the campus at Kent State University were protesting the Vietnam war and the presence of US troops in Cambodia.  The National Guard had been called in to contain the crowds.  When they would not disperse, 28 guardsmen opened fire killing 4 students and injuring 9 others in the course of just 13 seconds.  John Filo, a student at the school and a part-time news photographer, captured the now famous image of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling and crying over the body of Jeffrey Miller.  After the shooting, nearly 450 high schools and colleges were shut down due to student walkouts and strikes. The photo appeared on the front page of the New York Times and won the Pulitzer Prize.  It significantly affected public opinion and mobilized America’s youth.

Tank Man 

In 1989, the Chinese government sent tanks to forcibly disperse workers, students and children from a student-led protest at Tiananmen Square, resulting in the killing of hundreds of citizens.  After the military had violently suppressed the crowds, an unknown figure walked into the street and bravely stood in protest in front of a column of tanks. This photo (one of a few similar versions) was taken by Jeff Widener and is thought by some to be one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.  It moved the world, but unfortunately did not move the government of China and is still censored there to this day.

Shooting of James Meredith 

James Meredith, was a civil rights figure who in 1962 became the first African-American accepted into the segregated University of Mississippi.  In 1966 he began a 220 mile solo March Against Fear to bring attention to racism, and to encourage African American voter registration after the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  On the second day of the march, he is shot by a white man with a shotgun.  While protecting himself from gunfire, Jack Thornell, a photographer traveling the route with the Associated Press, captured this image of James as he crawled across the road in pain.  The photo won a Pulitzer prize in 1967.   While Meredith was recovering, Martin Luther King Jr. and Stokely Carmichael took up the cause.  And by the time Meredith rejoins the march, it had become the largest in Mississippi history at over 15,000 people, and over 4000 African Americans had registered to vote.

Flower Child and Flower Power 

                                                                                                                                                 

Flower Child taken by Marc Riboud of a high school student passing a chrysanthemum to a soldier with a bayonet, and Flower Power taken by Bernie Boston of a protester placing a carnation into the barrel of a rifle, were both taken in 1967 on the Mall in front of the Pentagon as over 100,000 people gathered to protest the Vietnam war.  The Flower Power movement had begun in 1965 to promote fighting violence and anger with peace and civility through the use of nonviolent objects like flowers and flags.  Both images are said to have influenced the antiwar movement and have inspired similar peaceful demonstrations and similar photos throughout the years since.

There are hundreds of examples of images like these that encouraged a call to action, represented a movement, or brought about changes in our society.  But things are different in the digital age.  Through Twitter; Facebook; Instagram; Snapchat; Vine; YouTube; BlogSpot and the limitless other social media outlets, our culture has become flooded with so many images and videos of every event, we are at the point of oversaturation.  In many ways the result is that we are either jaded, oblivious, or numb to the actions of those around us.  This overabundance of imagery has diluted the photojournalistic waters to the point where we don’t know what is real, what is fake, what is candid, and what is staged.  Yes, you can “share” your every thought and experience with the click of a camera phone.  But I can delete it or ignore it just as easily. 

Don’t get me wrong…there are still hundreds of amazing photographers out there; telling their stories (and our stories) through images that captivate us every day.  And as you can see in the two examples below, those same social media outlets that have watered down the narrative are also the most useful tool we have to tell those stories and open discussions of change on a local and global scale.  

Sandy Hook 

In 2012, Shannon Hicks, a photographer for the Newtown Bee, captured this image of a class of elementary school students being led away by authorities from the scene where a gunman had killed 20 children and 6 adults.  The photo not only captured the raw emotion of the students, but also illustrated to the world how different this tragedy was than any that occurred before it.  It was soon on the front page of newspapers, magazines, and websites around the globe.

Taking a Stand in Baton Rouge 

This photo was taken in 2016 by Jonathan Bachman, of Ieshia Evans in Baton Rouge as she peacefully protests after the fatal shootings of 2 black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.  This image demonstrated the enormous power of social media as it quickly went viral and became a phenomenon as well as one of the iconic images connected to the Black Lives Matter movement.  It’s been compared in its importance to Tank Man and some of the other images above.

 

These are just 2 of hundreds of more recent meaningful images that caught the attention of the nation and started important conversations towards change.  And whether you agree or disagree with the area where change is needed, or the type of change we need, we can all agree that there are now limitless outlets to express our views on the change that each of us desire…through words, through actions, or through photos.

I encourage you to search ‘Photos that inspired change’ to find the images that I’ve highlighted here and many more.  Then read the full stories of the photographers, the images, the people they depict, and the change that those images brought to the world.   And let those photos and stories inspire you to effect the change you strive for in your school and your community.

So, as you engage in constructive dialogue or peaceful demonstration to express your beliefs, remember two things.  First and most important; be mindful and respectful in the consideration of the opinions of those with whom you may disagree.  And second; remember to use that powerful instrument of change, your camera, to capture and humanize the feelings, emotions, and struggles of those around you so that those images may speak as loud as your voice.