The beautiful thing about photography is that when you see a picture, you feel like you're right there, and you can see the people and places as though you fit in the frame too. That’s why I was browsing the photography section in the art library tonight.
The horrible thing about photography is that when you see a picture, you feel like you're right there, and you can see the people and places as though you fit in the frame too.
I looked through a book of Pulitzer winning photos a few hours ago, and I still feel sick. Beside each of the photos was a short statement about the photographer and the context of the shot that won then them the prize.
It was a big book of war photos, of people mutilated, dying or just in extreme pain. Two of the photographers committed suicide after taking their pictures, three others tried.
Some of the photographers I felt like finding and shaking- what the hell were you doing with a camera in your hand when you could have been helping? Why were you sitting there photographing and not reaching out to catch the girl falling four stories? Why weren't you comforting the parents whose toddler was caught in a riptide? You say that you empathize but you just stood there and clicked away.
I don't know what I'm thinking, but it's not good. I know that I'm an idealistic kid, and it's always surprised me when the world doesn't live up to what it could/ought be.
But this makes everything seem so ugly. Every year since the prizes started has had some horrible thing happen that people could capture on film. There were three non-brutally horrific ugly shots, in the whole book. What kind of world is this?
I'm going to bury myself in sculpting and try not to think about it any more.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
