[Leica] Photo Impact

["Gib Robinson" <robinson@sfsu.edu>]

[Rob Appleby wrote]
in the past, Vietnam is the most significant example, pictures
did have an impact. Now, I doubt it. There are just too many pictures and
too much information.

Hi Rob,
I agree that photos and video images are so common they have less impact
individually. I suspect that images are in some ways replacing language as a
medium of communication, especially between cultures. Individual photos like
individual words now have less meaning because they are so common.
Collectively, however, images are how we are beginning to speak to each
other articulately without needing to learn many languages. Nachtwey's
impact and the impact of other prominent image makers may be primarily to
refine the "language" and shape the nature of the dialog with respect to the
subject matter of their photos.

Those of us who take images and look at them are learning the language, and
learning to use the language of images -- becoming intelligent communicators
in what may become the most prominent lingua franca of our time.

- --Gib