How images change the world
An interesting argument about how and why to look at photographs of suffering.
First, put yourself in the position of the photographer; imagine you are seeing what they did right in front of you:
> Azoulay asks her readers to project themselves into the scenes of photographs, to notice the power dynamics at play, to identify the participants, and to view the outcomes not as inevitable but as one possibility among many.
Then prepare yourself to act when you see similar situations in the future:
> Viewers, through careful observation of images of horror, become witnesses who “can occasionally foresee or predict the future,” she writes. As a result, they can warn others of “dangers that lie ahead” and take action to prevent them…
> To be resisted, it seems, violence must be seen, and photography makes such vision possible.