Pictures Be True

This is the picture that I brought on Wednesday. My family and I were at some fishy part of Disney World, and, of course, the parents had to document every single moment of it. As my dad points for us to look at the camera, we smile—and it got me mid-blink. I remember my dad telling me he caught that shark and gave it to Disney because he's a good man. With childhood innocence, my sister and I believed. What father lies to their kids?

To me, this is how I remember that moment, how my mother captured the three of us in a happy time.

Susan Sontag disagrees. She claims, "one never understands anything from a photograph," and I can see where she is coming from. If some random person saw this picture, would they get the story that I experienced? Even for me, the memory is vague in my mind: I have no idea who took the picture; I have no idea if my eyes are closed or just small; I have no idea if my dad said he donated the shark to Disney. I'm "[filling] in the blanks." I can understand Sontag's argument that "functioning takes place in time and must be explained in time."

However, I wouldn't call all of this "mental pollution." I would not say that photographs prevents us from seeing the open skies. Sure, they can be "a semblance of knowledge, a semblance of wisdom," but they can incite action. Doesn't Sarah Mclachlan's commercial prove that? Since its airing, it raised $30 million for ASPCA. Photographs are triggers to memories, to feelings, to experiences. There is more to "the world"—"reality"—than the aesthetics.