Chapter One

Can Photographs Change the World? 

Photographs have the capacity to spread information, spread news around the world with visualization instead of always having to verbally tell stories, uniting people, showing the good and success of people, and tragic and traumatic events. Some photographs are very powerful with certain images that may impact people in different ways. It all depends on what images you may be looking through. For example; pictures of a firefighter rescuing a young girl, the firefighter automatically becomes the hero in the story. People could be encouraged within that scene and want to keep helping those who need the help. Rescuing and being there for others. Another example which could be completely different; when females look up photographs to get ideas of how they would like to look, such as hair styles or clothing. Photographs are a great help. Within good or bad. Photographs can change the world.

Photo by: Ricardo Arduengo

On September 20, 2017, a category 4 storm... "Puerto Rico is devastated and struggling to recover after Hurricane Maria pummeled the island territory" A beautiful island, a home to my family, and I have been destroyed. This was so hard for me not only because my island was destroyed but because over 50% of my family lives there and had to go through this tragic moment. My mom tried to help most of them and tried to send them help with certain things they would call us that they needed, to come to find out that the mail that was trying to been sent out from around the world had to be backed up because it could not be delivered by the mail mans over there. "As of April 4 — almost seven months since the storm hit — about 96 percent of residents on the island have had power restored”, though some were able to get power back others didn’t. For example, aunt lives up in mountains, she didn’t receive any for a very long time. I would see the photographs of many different parts of Puerto Rico and it emotionally changed everything. It was visual and then it all looked so much realistic rather than hearing about it. Wow, such a great island got themselves back up and help themselves build back up the island. Looking through the pictures with worries and thoughts, all I could do was pray and have faith everything will get better for them.

Photo by: Carlos Giusti

Photographs CAN change the world and gather an island together and make it stronger. To continue with the Hurricane story, a little over a year after the hurricane a chat was leaked. More in depth, a “Telegram Chat” was leaved in which Puerto Ricos governor and some government officials participated in. Many screenshots were leaked to the public. "The public display of anger comes after nearly 900 pages of profane and offensive private text messages were leaked in which sexist, homophobic and other derogatory language was repeatedly used.” Within these screenshots which I did read; the governor (Ricardo Rossello) made sexist and homophobic comments, mocked the death in the aftermath of the hurricane in which he also tried to cover up the deaths after the hurricane Maria, he had a lady who was also in it with him, who was withholding aid that was sent after the hurricane and made it seem like she was personally handing out like if it was her in order to make the party "look good" and as of party I meant the governors party. A lot of the help that was sent to Puerto Rico from around the world were delayed, some were spoiled, and some was abounded. What mostly hurt a lot of or I should say ALL of Puerto Rico was that while Puerto Rico reunited and were suffering and rebuilding the beautiful island the governor and his party stayed in the air-conditioned convention center in San Juan after hit hurricane and never saw a day of struggling. On top of this, while 6,000 people died, the party was just mocking that type of sadness. "Thousands of people flooded the streets of San Juan on Monday, calling for Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello to resign from office. The mass demonstrations are expected to be one of the largest protests ever seen in a U.S. territory.” The governor at first refused to resign despite all the protests that was ongoing, until Puerto Rico got together and were so powerful; he decided to resign. The photographs of Puerto Rico were so powerful and meaningful, all you could say was "wow, Puerto Rico we have finally spoken, and we have taught the world a lesson on democracy." It felt good to congratulate ourselves and feel good that the world talked good about our value and what we deserve. We might be a small island to others, but to us Puerto Ricans we are BIG, we are everything we can and want to be.

Photographs can change some peoples perception of the world. In the video "Photos that changed the world", Jonathan Klein mentions "Since the beginning of photography, images have provoked reactions in people and those action have caused change to happen" There are images that we all see and we suddenly have our own ideas to it. Some of us see a picture and are so emotionally connected to the picture we want to do something to make the world a better place because we feel inspired by the image. In the video, "Do Photographs Change the World?" Professor says "A photojournalist can take a picture of it but it cant be published or its not allowed to be published" In which I do agree with but when there's a photo that can't be published, we can talk about it with others and try to make a difference in a different way. Speaking or maybe writing about it.