Photographs that changed the world around you. Part- II

Photographs that changed the world around you Part 1 ended with the demolition of the Berlin Wall, an event that changed the globe and its political boundaries forever. If you have missed on it, check it out first here. Once you have done it, you'll appreciate going through this one more. This part continues from where I left off previously.

#Sudanese Child with Vulture

This image by Carter appeared in presses all over the world and became a lasting symbol of how famines can wreak havoc, and how much the people facing it need help. Photographer Kevin Carter had committed suicide over the fact that he wasn’t allowed to help the dying child waited on by a Vulture. Sometimes, a Pulitzer Prize is something you don’t want to get on something as depressing as that.

Photographs that changed the world around you. Part- I

There are photographs that leave you influenced beyond comprehension. The adeptness and the virtual explanation of ‘A photograph can speak a thousand words’ comes alive take you in unarmed. I present my collection of 10 photographs over two parts and I hope you like it. Give all of them a moment on you so that you come to appreciate why it finds a place in the list. I would certainly like to know what you would add on to it in your list of photographs that changed your world as you know it to be. 

# The first photograph in the world

Taken as early as 1839 by Louis Daguerre, this photograph is of a wall, a chimney and a rooftop. Though not clear to be appreciated, this is in-fact the world’s first photograph. It is from where everything started. It a photo-sensitive plate a sheet of pewter coated in a mixture of bitumen, dissolved in lavender oil. Though not taken from a proper camera, it leads to invention of the daguerreotype, the first camera able to take photographs.

The Ethics of Photographing the Dead: Are we losing them?

As I opened up the newspapers in the last week, they all seemed to focus (and rightly so) on the Uttarakhand Flash Floods that happened. To those who never go through what happens in the world around them, the events unfolds as such-

“A cloudburst happened very close to where Kedarnath is, the water which was now coming down in torrents swept away all the four Dhams (revered Hindu places of travel) and swept away an unknown number of people. Most of them where devotees going to visit the holy Quadrilateral and thus I would assume a lot of Young and Elderly people are among the dead. As of now, around 1000 deaths have been reported”

The complete failure of the Disaster Management authorities to even ensure that buildings and other things are in complete sync with what is taught as Disaster Management at schools are laughable; but that’s not what I will deal with right now. I really feel the glaring and blatant lack of respect to the dead in India amazing and that’s what I would want to air here.