Exposing empathy - The impact of photography

Elizabeth Eckfords walk to school in Little Rock, Phan Thi staggering forth covered in napalm, Vultures stalking Sudanese children, men standing before tanks, falling from burning towers, or meditating as they burn themselves

These images are seared in to the minds of many, these images cracked the damns propaganda and fear built within us to hold back empathy. Because these images hold inalienable truth.

And whilst all artwork refracts and reflects truth, no medium provides a surface so smooth and well polished as photography to do so. It is hard to deny the emperors lack of clothes when their nudity is perfectly captured in a frozen reflection. Near impossible to deny a suffering seen so plainly wrought upon our own face.

Even now the British press is capitulating before this truth, just as those black and white images of starved prisoners in the 40s made apparent the abhorrent truth of what a regime had done. Now in full colour and 80 years later the images of children starved by another regime forces the hand of anyone with a heart to condemn such horror. Even the most right wing of tabloid rags finds no words that can assuage the thousand words of truth an image holds.

Now whilst I talk on these monumental cultural shifts held within iconic imagery, it is important to remember that this truth matters as much in the micro as the macro. These small daily truths encourage us to explore and appreciate the world around us, to see the common individual within us all and all around us.

All this is not to say photography is infallible, composition can alter context and that’s before we even get to thoughts on photoshop.

Yet at its core there is a truth to exposing a sensor to light, and in that truth we are exposed to life, that is something which should never die.

(AP photo by Jehad Alshrafi - Naima Abu Ful holds her malnourished child - Refugee camp, Gaza City - July 23rd 2025)