Photography changes how we experience history

In David Friend’s article Photography Changes how we experience history he examines the many ways that photography played a part in the aftermath of9/11. He first explains that the event was caught from many different angles from all kinds of photographers and videographers around the city. Before long it seemed that anyone that had a direct line of sight to the towers was snapping pictures of it. This resulted in the mass dissemination of photographs via the internet and news, the likes of which had never been seen previously. As a result the availability and diversity of these images created a sort of memory bank of the event that is telling in almost every possible way.

Throughout photographic history there have been famous photographs that have been associated with events or wars. Usually these photographs are particularly telling and symbolic of the event as a whole and are seen as a good visual reference for the event. In the case of 9/11 that was not the case, there was no single photograph that stands above the rest when it comes to our memory of 9/11 no specific symbolic symbol that we have attached to it. Though there have been famous and widely used 9/11 photos there are none that particularly stand out. This is because there were so many people that were recording the event and who put it out onto the internet. This availability of photographic evidence has resulted in the association of 9/11 not with one photograph but rather the aggregate reactions to those photographs and the collection of memories that were influenced by the photographs that were seen. Thus, 9/11 is different from most past events chronicled by photographs in that the photographs are not only huge in number and mostly amateur but they also allow a person to see that event from a number of different lenses (literally) and angles.