A Thousand Words

The old saying, as over-used and cliché as it may be, is undeniably true: pictures really are worth a thousand words. Looking at a single picture can tell you more about a person or place than any written description ever could. However, this is not to say that a photograph is always meant to serve the purpose of providing accurate and non-biased information. In reality, the thousand words that a picture tells you are completely up to the photographer.

For example, if I were a travel agent and a family walked in and asked me about a vacation in the Dominican Republic, I would likely show them something like this:

This picture is of beautiful Punta Cana, a tropical paradise with resorts lined with luscious palm trees and bright sandy beaches. After seeing this picture alone, this hypothetical family may want to pack their bags and start their extensive tour of the Dominican Republic as soon as possible. From what this picture tells them, this country is flawless and there is no better place to be on earth.

Now say I am commissioned by a history textbook to send in a picture that gives an accurate depiction of what a typical town in the Dominican Republic looks like. That picture would look more like this:

Even though this is the same country, this picture says a completely different set of words.  As Susan Sontag states, "One never understands anything from a photograph." A person can think they understand something but really they're only thinking what the photographer is allowing them to think.