Susan Sontag wrote extensively about the power of images, especially war photojournalism. She also raised questions about these images and the...

Photojournalists have been known, from time to time, to stage photographs to maximize their emotional, and political, impact. Even those, the vast majority, not staged for maximum effect, however, can still resonate powerfully with viewers and, consequently, affect public opinion and public policy. There is, perhaps, no better recent example than that of the three-year-old boy whose drowned body was photographed on a beach on the Turkish coast. The child's family had fled the war in Syria and, as happens, the boat on which they were sailing capsized. The image of the dead child quickly resonated with millions of viewers around the world, forcing regional governments to reassess their policies with regard to immigration.

Susan Sontag had a long record of not just photographing images, but of studying and contemplating them. In 1977, she published On Photography, a compilation of her essays from 1973 to 1977. These essays constituted a meditation on imagery and its use and exploitation by myriad social classes. Photography, Sontag argued, served to bring the world's realities closer, but also served to sensitize viewers without risks of personal connection to the realities behind those images. As she wrote in On Photography,

"Photography, which has so many narcissistic uses, is also a powerful instrument for depersonalizing our relation to the world; and the two uses are complementary. Like a pair of binoculars with no right or wrong end, the camera makes exotic things near, intimate; and familiar things small, abstract, strange, much farther away. It offers, in one easy, habit-forming activity, both participation and alienation in our own lives and those of others—allowing us to participate, while confirming alienation."

Turn the clock ahead a quarter-of-a-century, and Sontag had taken another, more learned look at the role of photography in capturing and shaping realities. Her 2003 volume Regarding the Pain of Others expanded considerably on the essays that formed the earlier volume, and reflected observations regarding the use and misuse of photography. She is careful to parse the practical and moral utility of photojournalism, for example, from the voyeuristic sensation many people glean from viewing images of the suffering of others. As she wrote in Regarding the Pain of Others:

"For all the voyeuristic lure—and the possible satisfaction of knowing, This is not happening to me, I'm not ill, I'm not dying, I'm not trapped in a war—it seems normal for people to fend off thinking about the ordeals of others, even others with whom it would be easy to identify."

With respect to the integrity of photojournalism, Sontag offers an interesting perspective, noting that the message may be more important than the validity of the image presented. In other words, a photograph of an atrocity may have been manipulated, but that doesn't delegitimize the underlying fact of an atrocity, just as images that purport to display war crimes, but which were, in fact, staged or faked, can still serve a higher purpose of illuminating the brutality and inhumanity taking place. Note in the following passage Sontag's comments in this regard:

"A photograph—or a filmed document available on television or the internet—is judged a fake when it turns out to be deceiving the viewer about the scene it purports to depict. That the atrocities perpetrated by the French soldiers in Spain didn't happen exactly as pictured—say, that the victim didn't look just so, that it didn't happen next to a tree—hardly disqualifies The Disasters of War. Goya's images are a synthesis. They claim: things like this happened. In contrast, a single photograph or filmstrip claims to represent exactly what was before the camera's lens. A photograph is supposed not to evoke but to show. That is why photographs, unlike handmade images, can count as evidence."

Sontag's argument, while eloquently discussing the moral relativism that can seep into photojournalism, especially in a war, remains committed to the notion of a greater good. The validity of the image is less important than the message the image conveys, especially if the image illuminates the horrors of war. Whether the individual student is influenced by photographs and reconsiders his or her position on a given issue, or is introduced and spurred to action by photographs is entirely personal. Everybody reacts differently to external stimuli, although there is, usually, considerable overlap among individuals representing the same or similar cultures. The more diverse the population, however, the more diverse may be the reaction. Cultures accustomed to war, and Afghanistan, a topic of discussion in Sontag's book, definitely react differently to images of wartime atrocities than do, say, Americans living comfortably and peaceably thousands of miles away. That photographic images of war emotionally resonate with most populations, however, is beyond doubt. Indeed, the now-infamous photographs of abuses by American military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq caused a major global reaction against U.S. actions in that country, as well as in other countries where, it was revealed, U.S. intelligence officials were surreptitiously transporting terrorism suspects for interrogation—the so-called practice of rendition. 

There is a famous photograph from World War II that shows a Japanese soldier beheading an Australian prisoner-of-war with a sword. That photograph, when released, was circulated among Allied troops, who needed no more motivation than they already possessed, but who were dismayed by the inhumanity the image conveyed. Robert Capa's famous photographs of the D-Day landings on the northern coast of France served to bring home to millions of Americans the sacrifices their sons, brothers and husbands were making in Europe. Wartime photography influences opinions. Photographs from wars do have a strong emotional impact on viewers, and they do change or alter perspectives, whether real or faked.

Whether any particular individual views images about war differently is subjective. As noted, everybody responds differently to external stimuli. Photographs that depict the inhumanity of war do influence people and policies. Whether they make one more anti-war than the individual was prior to viewing the images is up to the individual. Wars are horrific by nature. Photographs of bodies torn apart by large caliber weaponry or by shrapnel from explosions, and images of children orphaned by war or among the dead are very powerful. They should cause one to reflect upon the nature of war. That, however, serves little practical value when one is forced to confront the awful decision of whether going to war to stop a greater atrocity is warranted.