Furthermore, Life is filled with moments. Birth of a child, graduation, wedding ceremonies, death, war and crisis, these are all some example of moments. With a photo one can capture a moment and save it forever. Later on this photographs becomes memories and memories turns out to be nostalgic. Photographs serves as an official document history. The present time is the history of the future. One can never know when one will be right in the middle of a world challenging event and a camera on the spot can be an evidence for the future and can create a record for generations to come. Take the case of 9/11. Fifteen years later, the sudden outburst of New York is still keenly felt when one remembers it through a photo or a video. Each of the photos reveal one of the darkest days of America. Executive at NYC’s national September 11 memorial and museum, Clifford Chanin in an article of National Geographic titled as “Remembering 9/11 in pictures” states “Many of the images from 9/11 still convey the rawness and brutality of the attack. They still have the capacity to shock” (Handwerk and Howard). In fact, photographs are worth in taking people back to that moment and a photographer is being given the credit of capturing the intense moment. A finest example on this case would be a famous photograph titled “Falling Man,” where photographer Richard Drew of AP captures the reversed jump of an unknown victim of 9/11 from the north tower. “Frozen Moment,” captured by Thomas Nilsson of Getty images portrays just the exact collapsing moment of the south tower with dense smoked around it. These are some of the unique photos that still horrifies and jolt people. Because these photos show action and have the command to be an official document for future references. From the inception, photography was termed as the truth-telling medium, practiced as a fine art and commercial purposes. War was one of the very main subjects that lures the enthusiastic photographers for clicking strong subjected photographs. War photographs summons a large audience, works as a spectacle to understand the situation of the war zone and later on plays a habitual role in shaping national backgrounds and histories. For instance, photographs made a useful impact in preserving the World War I moments and memories. “Literally millions of photographs have survived form the First World War, ranging from those used for official propaganda purposes to those preserved in private albums, forming a considerable historical record” (Badsey). Professor Stephen Badsey reminds the fact that a photo cannot lie. It has enough logic in a sense that it would record what was in front of it. It automatically record social history: the way people celebrates, the way they dressed and how their streets and buildings looked like. For example, a photograph representing an Italian soldier having his hair cut in a trench on the Albanian Front in 1918 would simply give the audience the atmosphere and sense of visualizing the situation of World War I. Again, a photograph in 1915 during WW1 showing a large group of soldiers attending church service in a filed keeping the priest in the middle would merely give the spectators the idea of the way the soldiers attended their church session back on that time. Therefore all this photographs are the critical evidence of the moment that as otherwise been missed from the history of the war. “Taken together, the photographic records tells a very important part of the war’s story” (Badsey). Consequently, a photographer doesn’t gain follower and become famous only by clicking technical fitted pictures. A photographer gets famous by those pictures which will be a great reference to relate the past of a person, nation or even a place. Steve McCurry’s one of the leading photographers of the 21st century is well known for his photos taken all over India. His popularity didn’t come about merely because of the technical fitness of his photos but rather his photos relates the past of India. “The photographs of India taken in the last 40 years are popular in part because they evoke an earlier time in Indian history, as well as old ideas of what photographs should be like” (Cole). In a single photograph taken in 1983 by Steve McCurry, the Taj Mahal at the background and at the foreground was a steam engine train with two men riding in front of the engine; one of the men was crouched, white bearded and wearing a white cap and other one with brown official uniform with red turban. This photograph undoubtedly provides a sense of how the Taj Mahal and India looked at the 80’s. This photograph now is a great proof to describe ancient India and represent it to the next generation.
Read All Parts
Beginners Guide Towards Photography-Click and Get the Best Shot- Part One
Beginners Guide Towards Photography-World Through Lens-Part Two
Beginners Guide Towards Photography-About Wedding Photography-Part Three
Beginners Guide Towards Photography-The Challenge-Part Four
Beginners Guide Towards Photography-Feel The Moments-Part Five
Beginners Guide Towards Photography-As A Career-Part Six
