Photographs that Influence Opinion

Images provide direct view of the world - originally more difficult to change than painting/sculpture
Preserve history, expess emotions - can make us 'reach inside us to make us feel something' Terrazas
Form of communication, one that can tell stories

Lewis Hine 1974 - 1940

Official photographer for  National Child Labor Committee in America (founded 1904) for 10 years (1908 - 1918)

- Went into mills under cover to photograph children working in order to change laws on child labour in America
- Spoke to the children, as well as the supervisors, to find out what they were doing there (supervisors, most were 'hgelping sister') , their age, wage etc.


Dorothea Lange 1895 - 1965

- Most famous for photographing the effects of the Great Depression and American Dust Bowl of the 1930's.
- Most famous work - Migrant Mother


Don McCullin 1935 -

War Photographer, 1964 - '84, covering Cyprus, Congo, Biafra, Vietman and more
- Showed people living and dieing in war zones, London etc

Phan Kim Phuc, Napalm child - by Nick Ut, Vietnam, completely changed the public view of the Vietnam war, but didn't stop it.

Example:

The most lethal attack by humans on the Democratic Republic of Congo’s endangered mountain gorillas in 30 years left four of the animals dead.

The bodies of three females and one dominant male silverback were found in Virunga National Park, driving up the primate’s death toll to at least seven since the beginning of the year.

The four animals belonged to a group of 12 gorillas known to researchers as the Rugendo family, which has frequently been sighted by tourists.

Emmanuel de Merode, head ofthe conservation group Wildlife Direct, said two of the females had infants with them at the time of the slaughter — a three-year-old who is still missing and a five-month-old gorilla who was found by her older brother and then retrieved by rangers.

The infant was taken into care because she was too young to survive without her mother.

Officials said the “executions” were carried out by a militant group trying to scare wardens out of the park, and not the work of poachers because the carcasses were not taken.

“This area must be immediately secured or we stand to lose an entire population of these animals,” said Deo Kujirakwinja of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Congo program.

In early June, park rangers rescued a two-month-old mountain gorilla found clinging to its dead mother, which had been shot execution-style through the back of its head.

A census conducted in 2004 estimated that 380 gorillas, more than half of the world's population, lived in the national park and surrounding Virunga volcanoes region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

http://www.earthweek.com/online/ew070803/ew070803i.html

These four silverback Gorilla’s were shot dead illegally. There are only and estimated 700 wild Gorilla’s left in the world.

Virunga National Park covers ground from the Virunga Mountains, to the Rwenzori Mountains, in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Many park wardens end up dead.

Corporate logging and agriculture have threatened habitat while the lucrative for locals bush meat trade is also a threat to Gorilla’s and other wild life in the Virunga National Park.

It has to be said the situation in the DRC is tragic for all involved after years of civil war for the 67 million population.

Donations can be made to help prevent the slaughter of Gorillas to theInternational Gorilla Conservation Program.

http://honewatson.com/og/congo-gorilla-massacre/